Guild Wars 2

you go up to lvl 2

Vayne.8563:

Randulf.7614:

There has never been much map chatter in this game except at launch which you would expect. In terms of population on lower maps, that entirely depends on server and no connection to the overall population it seems. Some highest pop severs report ghost town maps, some low population servers report always seeing people on maps.

There’s not a lot of reason to team up outside of dungeons/fractals/current living story content as well. There was a suggestion about ramming more events, esp group ones and with decent rewards into all maps – hopefully this will be something that can be added down the line.

I disagree with this. There is a lot of reason to team up. Things go a lot faster. We do zone completion/leveling alts with the guild all the time, and a bunch of people working on stuff yields faster leveling and more reward.

Logically if you can kill something in a three seconds by yourself or one second in a group, you’re going to get more drops.

Let me re-phrase…it doesn’t encourage enough group play in open world. You can pretty much play through the entire game, get 100% (pve) map without ever having to team. That isn’t to say group play isn’t fun, but I’ve read through these boards inside and out – players like yourself and myself play to explore, enjoy the events, enjoy the world etc. Finding whole groups who want to do this is pretty hard and when they exist they are a minority.

Also, you’d be surprised how many people aren’t aware that loot is better in a team. As Chris W. said in the CDI, the game doesn’t educate its players enough about some of its core features. Maybe this feature isn’t strong enough for most to notice.

A greater level of group events (like the metas but more and bigger) with enticing rewards would help balance out this issue. Guild Bounties are a good example of using zones, but they aren’t as widely done as they could be due to some flaws in the design. Southson was a start in terms of it being much easier to get around in a group. But, the zone had nothing to offer outside of its gorgeous artwork for most players.

There has never been much map chatter in this game except at launch which you would expect. In terms of population on lower maps, that entirely depends on server and no connection to the overall population it seems. Some highest pop severs report ghost town maps, some low population servers report always seeing people on maps.

There’s not a lot of reason to team up outside of dungeons/fractals/current living story content as well. There was a suggestion about ramming more events, esp group ones and with decent rewards into all maps – hopefully this will be something that can be added down the line.

Has anyone on GH tried Jormag today? The bugged shield wall has gone, some nodes have changed and spawns look like they are working better. They may have fixed it overnight for us.

My ele would be sooooo much fun to play. There are so many traits I could synch together and have some fun with on him.

I fear my Warrior would be a bit more boring though. High Vit, high tough and High dps all at the same time….I’d imagine some sort of human bulldozer!! Wait…why is that boring..bring it on ;D

Could be intermittent then. SOmething seems wrong on DB for you guys tonight

If it is Dragonbrand..I suspect it is a server wide issue. Reports from other places are popping up too.

Wasn’t there an issue in LA on your server too which was the same problem? Sounds a major server blip happened

It’s happening across a few servers, altho persistently on GH. a lot of bug reports/forum posts have been put out about it, I can only imagine post-holiday season workload + some bigger underlying issue has delayed action on this since before Christmas.

A shame really, lots of new players in GH Frostgorge have been a bit disappointed these past couple of weeks.

Shatterer I still can’t do though. It’s perhaps my least fun one to play. Which is a shame, because the art design of him is the best of all the 3 dragons.

Revamped Golem and Mega Destroyer are always fun to do for me and Jormag – I’m probably one of the few who actually enjoys the fight! And I actually buck the forum trend of liking new Tequatl too.

What would improve the bosses is revamped mechanics (not to Teq extent, but at least so they were threatening!) and also a sense of defating them being meaningful. Right now they are just loot bunnies when they could/should have more meaningful impact on their zone.

Haven’t seen this on our server and ours isn’t a big server at all. I’ve notice though different servers have different experiences, regardless of population sizes. It might the differences in community make ups. Here on Gunnars Hold, we are fortunate to have some dedicated guilds/players who set up daily World Tours and plenty of players who will happily call out when a boss like Grenth or Karka is up to rally players to the cause.

I do agree though, there are going to be times when killing the same bosses over and over is just repetitive. I stopped doing them all for about 3 months for that very reason.

Game of Thrones is just an easy comparison because everyone knows of it. Like how Harry Potter and Star Wars get used as comparisons for things – not because of direct parallels, but due to mass audience popularity in their respective genres.

Whilst I agree, this has been discussed at length a lot over the last few months and you will be happy to hear has been acknowledged by both Colin and the writers as a flaw. Hopefully they have learned from this and the next arc will be taking this into account for the story.

Malediktus.9250:

It would make the Legendary Collector achievement too easy.

A good point, hadn’t thought of that

And I thought my warrior’s complete lack of regard for any form of personal safety was pretty bad at 2300 deaths since headstart…but nope…you guys win the 2014 Lemming Award!!

I like the principle of your idea, the main drawback I could see is that how would it determine the price? It fluctuates a lot and is controlled/fixed by players. Perhaps if you could reverse forge the recipe so you could sell off the precursor and re-use the mats or the gifts, that would be more viable.

Or even better, a gemstore item that “unbinds” any item of your choice, inclduing legendaries. Then you can sell the legendary and buy the Juggernaut with the money made.

Vayne.8563:

ChaosKirin.1328:

I seem to be the only one on this forum that knows how a story works. I’m so excited that this game actually has one that lasts, rather than being released all at once and then having nothing for two years.

I LOVE the living story. I pity the poor person who had to change their vision for the living story because of impatience on the part of the players. Releasing a little bit of story every two weeks is an amazing idea, and it seems that people here can’t connect the dots enough to realize that these story pieces aren’t random – they’re all part of a larger whole.

What I’m getting is that not only do most people not understand that the conclusion of the story is forthcoming, but that they want all their story at once, and then they want to repeat it over and over and over for a year until more story comes out. Then they can repeat that over and over.

I am legitimately confused. Why does this have to be all instant gratification? Why can’t we all just relax and let the story come as it does?

You’re not the only person who understands how a story works. I was quite enjoying the way it was, and I’m also sorry they have to change it.

There is much to be said about the concept of the Living Story and I admire what they tried to achieve with the 2 week update. Having said that, there have been many exceptional analyses on why the current story has been a prime example of how never to tell a story and how many rules of basic storytelling have been broken. Some of these have come from the dev team themselves who have held up their hands and basically said “we got this wrong in places”. Kudos to them for saying it too.

The advantages we have by extending the period not only extends to (hopefully) a better quality of writing and storytelling, is that ultimately the original vision has a much better chance to flourish. The story at times forgot about the rest of the world in favour of short, sharp bursts of story with no real interaction with the rest of the world.

For example Tower of Nightmares. Certainly from a gameplay P.O.V it was one of their best updates. But, it all happened so quickly and w/o development. And disappeared just as quick without really impacting the world around it. The Centaurs, the bandits, all ignored what was going on, whilst happily breathing in the toxic fumes.

For a story to grab its readers, its needs to build and reveal gradually, not wait for one big tie together at the end. What this change means is that they can give themsleves the time and resources to do just that – and that’s something (for me) that is quite exciting.

So do I – it’s simple as an idea and fits in pretty well with the way the game is right now. There would be a lot of artwork to be done, but there’s still potential in this.

Nice one

Looks exciting to me. Can’t wait for next week!

Next Tuesday and hopefully we will get a preview update tomorrow about it

This is stating the obvious, so apologies in advance!!
Have you ensured the affected stacks are in your collections tab of the bank? The expander doesn’t affect inventory or bank slots.

Beyond that, its waiting on support (they’ve been a bit over-worked with a December gems reward issue, so they may take a little longer than usual to reply)

All sorted late Sunday night

Please pass on my thanks to the Support Team

p.s. don’t let the extra work gone into sorting the rewards put off doing such a promotion again

I believe the colour is based on our ranking within a tier. So if we take top spot within the tier, we rise to green.

That may be old or inaccurate info tho

Champs seem to have returned regularly, Jormag still bugged out though (Gunnars Hold)

Behellagh.1468:

Randulf.7614:

Nothing arrived here. I’ll see if I can dig out my gem purchase confirmation email…although I think the spam box ate it!!

Honestly, kids nowadays. If it’s important, like serial numbers, purchase confirmations, etc. you pull them out of spam folder, untag it as spam and file it in another folder called ArenaNet or GW2 or something along those lines. Can’t wait to hear what you do to titles of cars, homes, wills. “Well there was a pile of stuff on the table that I threw away because my SO was coming over for the first time. Must of been in there.”

Pfft…you sound like my accountant

Weather affecting gameplay has been done before and it can add wonders to the atmosphere to a zone.

eg The Misty Mountains in LOTRO had a small area where a blizzard would reduce visibility and you could easily get lost.

I’d love to see something like this in Tyria – a true Living World needs a living environment as a well as progressive story.

I also like the above idea of unique enemies and loot at night. That has interesting potential to it

Nothing arrived here. I’ll see if I can dig out my gem purchase confirmation email…although I think the spam box ate it!!

BobbyStein.2315:

Azure Prower.8701:

… onto the compost heap.

Are we going to get SAB returning shortly after?

Because lets be honest. This is the only living world update the majority of people enjoyed.

Actually, we have metrics on every LW release. While SAB was indeed successful in terms of participation, so were the other releases (Scarlet ones included). I understand that forum feedback can color perception on which releases were the most popular/best received/most enjoyed but opinions on this are largely anecdotal. Please keep that in mind.

Now to your question: will we see a return of SAB? That’s not for me to say, but if it were to come back, what would people like to see from it? Harder/easier content? New world? More/no Moto story?

Or would you like future LW releases to cover other topics? Share your thoughts, but please keep it constructive. Thanks.

It would be interesting to hear about some of the metrics that are allowed to be shared. You are right, the forums colour perception, so hearing the about the reality wouldn’t be a bad thing.

As for SAB? Keep it simple. Keep what made the first release so great – short, punchy and nostalgic rich levels. World 2 started taking itself too seriously and the difficulty curve spiked somewhat. I personally didnt like tribulation mode as a concept, but at least the “hard mode” stuff can be kept there where it belongs.

Also – whilst it was incredibly popular, it did alienate some players for not being directly in the GW2 World/story etc. Worth having it run alongside a major story release, but keeping it around for longer (maybe 6-8 weeks) so everyone is kept happy.

Gaile Gray.6029:

Randulf.7614:

If I haven’t received either reward…is it worth submitting a ticket? I’m UK based, so I appreciate it is probably still active daytime/early evening over there, so happy to wait if need be.

Since we just tweaked the distribution details, could you please wait about, oh, 20 hours? I believe you will have your rewards in a matter of just a few hours, but waiting until Noon Pacific time tomorrow — that’s 8:00 PM your time — would be greatly appreciated, since we’ll then be responding to just a few edge cases and not those for whom there is no remaining issue (because the rewards are queued up and ready to go).

Thank you for asking.

Ah yeah not a problem. I’ll give it the weekend to let things move through the system. No rush after all

Cheers Gaile

If I haven’t received either reward…is it worth submitting a ticket? I’m UK based, so I appreciate it is probably still active daytime/early evening over there, so happy to wait if need be.

In an interview, the devs stated they regretted killing off Abaddon due to te finality of the situation left to them.

I doubt they will ever say if Zhaitan is dead or not unless he actually does “reawake”

yakuza snowdragon.4639:

Tamaki Revolution.3548:

Pretty sure it was a rhetorical question because the OP is still dissatisfied with the direction/decisions of the game :P

I’ll still answer. Population seems decent enough for me, of course that will be tested in the months to come.

Didn’t mean it to be and the general way I feel about the game over rides any opinion I have about how they develop it. I love GW2 and played from first beta. I suppose I’m really just waiting for the next elder dragon and content on that sort of a scale. I just cant stand mini games and festivals popping up all the time pulling players from the real content for a week at a time.
Another reply mentions 4 major updates, I havnt been following as I said earlier but is it dragon type content? lol

We don’t know. Speculation is rife, but all we can do is guess.

They will keep cards close to their chests on this one – you will have to watch the GW2 announcements/releases for further news.

You will get a variety of anecdotal info about this. The fact remains we simply have no idea and some servers are quiet and some are bustling. From my perspective, it is as busy as it ever was (post honeymoon launch period) – the population is just more split between content right now or taking a break until the first of 4 big patches hit on the 21st Jan.

The first quarter of 2014 looks to be a biggie for the game in the way it is being hyped. Only time will tell if it will pan out that way and that it meets the content update needs of many posting on the forums.

Your ability to post suggestions hasn’t been taken away, but it will be easier for devs to sift through suggestions if posted in the appropriate subforum now.

eg Living Story suggestions were better in the LS subforum. And got greater discussion from the community.

It’s an individual motivation thing. I’m like you, really struggled to get a 2nd/3rd lvlled. I think it because I need that “first time new” feeling to get through. Others can bypass that and just treat it like an objective thing and just whizz thorugh. Our guild leader has lvlled every profession..deleted and re-levelled them in the space of a year. I presume insanity is the cause…

Chris Whiteside.6102:

There has been a huge amount of discussion around sub classes. I would love to see you guys close out this particular area by either putting a sub class proposal together (Sentence detailing how it would work) or deciding as a group that it isn’t relevant at this point.

Personally I like the idea behind sub classes and see quite a few of the counter arguments based upon assumptions around balancing etc. Where possible we should try not to make decisions around feasibility of ideas through assumptions.

In short I would like to see if the CDI group thinks it is a relevant part of Horizontal Progression at this stage of GW2’s life?

Chris

Not sure personally if it is relevant at this stage since the core professions still need some work to make more builds viable , but I’m happy to read people’s reasonings as to why or further discussion on it.

It would be easier though to read a new thread on it. Trying to keep up with all the branching ideas in the thread is only going to become trickier and off putting for incoming posters.

Even if not a dev initated CDI specific thread, it is worth someone starting this up anew to keep the train of thought going and in one place.

No champs on Gunnars Hold either and Jormag just flies in a circle. It’s been a week..I’m surprised he’s not dizzy…

Spoilers of areas below for anyone stumbling into the thread!!

Maguuma is almost certainly SW Brisbane as thats what most ppl miss. There’s a little area leading from a side path in the cliff to an event which connects to some GW1 lore.

Krytan…hmm…there’s a cave with a giant in it in East Harathi. Maybe that one?

Leamas.5803:

ozmaniandevil.6805:

Another way to get them is usually by making the clovers. If you do the 10 batch recipe in the mystic forge and are “unlucky” enough, you can get quite a lot that way. So, do your clovers ASAP if it’s a legendary you’re going for.

LOL I was actually counting on this to get some of the T6 stuff and ended up uncharacteristically lucky for me and got all the clovers in 7 of 9 hits on the 10 clover recipe and about 15 tries on the one clover recipe for the final 7. Ended up not scoring a lot of mats. :/

This happened to me. When I needed clovers, I got half my T6 mats and piles of lodestones.

When I needed T6 mats…all I got was clovers…which I no longer needed…

If you have spare laurels, then 1 laurel = 3 random T6 mats at the vendor. Has saved me quite the headache of grinding on occasion! Lodestones I usually get from champ boxes though (or cores then convert up).

There are some hotspots with enough magic find – Armored Scales in the shores of Southson for eg, but buying them with gold seems to be the generally regarded and proven way to do it.

I have the same issue with the backpiece disappearing after this skill (intermittently)

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Randulf.7614:

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

I think this idea is pretty much reflecting the ethos of the game as well. I find myself often just wanting to wander the game (actually I’m doing that now whilst I break to catch up on this thread) – you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how wonderful the game is just to explore as a setting. Someone suggested in another thread the game feels “sterile”, which is perhaps too harsh a word, but they could be more alive with so much more bustle going on in them.

I think the above suggestion would transform the game to a level beyond any other mmo and be hard to compete with too.

Yeah I read that thread to. Its interesting how a Living World Event can feel more ‘Alive’ than exploration in some maps. I think the fact that Living World events are tied directly into achievements that reflect the theme of the story contribute to this.

This is why I like Marcus’s idea so much. It builds on existing systems and content and is more of a philosophy than a specific work task.

Chris

It’s partly why dynamic events are such an overwhelming strength of the game, especially over an archaeic qst system. The events tell the worlds’ story not the character’s. If you go on holiday to the same country every year, there will always be something different – places change over time and people change even if only in the background. That’s what every zone should aim to achieve even if it isn’t part of the current main story.

Aaaand I’ve realised I’ve gone off topic into a diff CDI here

Chris Whiteside.6102:

Marcus Greythorne.6843:

My number one would be “Zone Progression” / “Order Progression”

Something that gives players a purpose to explore the zones.

• A lot of people miss quests, my main guess why this is the case is: they miss stories. Dynamic Events are cyclical in nature, so those stories have no real end – climax if you want. Time to give your writers something more to do and let them design unique events.
• even the most simple idea could make people exited. Today I leveled in Kessex Hills when I saw a bear walking alongside a skritt. Awesome I thought… until I found out that I can’t interact with that npc at all; it’s just a guild mission boss. Why not spawn such rare characters (dozen of them, but rare spawns) in the open world, give them a loottable and a few interesting dialogue-options or even a small event associated.

Fill the existing maps with tons of things to do. I mean: tons and tons of things. And may these be just little things… the world has to feel more alive.

…and then combine this with progression. The more people find, the more they unlock. And the more they can unlock for others (in the sense of triggering new events).

summary: progression in specific zones via a huge variety of things to do (something for everyone – fighters, explorers, collectors, lore-lovers, treasure hunters,…………

People should have some goals for each of the zones. Not for the world in general (Legendary – mats from everywhere). Zelda reference: the Master Sword is in the Lost Woods, not everywhere in Hyrule.

This idea makes me excited, it could also tie into nearly every Horizontal Progression idea that has been put forward in this CDI.

It is just a good global ongoing goal to have, and one I think we have been doing but dependent on priorities could do a lot more of, especially from the point of view of using/evolving the Map Completion Meta Game system.

Chris

I think this idea is pretty much reflecting the ethos of the game as well. I find myself often just wanting to wander the game (actually I’m doing that now whilst I break to catch up on this thread) – you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you how wonderful the game is just to explore as a setting. Someone suggested in another thread the game feels “sterile”, which is perhaps too harsh a word, but the zones could be more alive with so much more bustle going on in them.

I think the above suggestion would transform the game to a level beyond any other mmo and be hard to compete with too.

People wanted Dragons. Maybe in some big Godzilla style chaos, they will all rise and attack different parts of Tyria at once!

Because JP’s cater to a different audience of players and there isn’t really anything it could be replaced with that is similar enough. Having vet and champ both in would have ppl on the forums complaining that there wasn’t enough variety. A healthy number of players enjoy JP’s and this caters to their playstyle and rewards them as well.

Having said that, I agree 1-2 more options would benefit the game, although if the argument is that its the best way for a casual player to get laurels for ascended, I’d rather the devs implemented more ways for us to get ascended. But that’s a whoooole other topic!

Dont forget, if you activate one and others are nearby…they can assist you. They will get the normal event rewards (eg karma), but it is an option for targets like Teesa where the map population is usually high.

After pre events are done, shield goes up, but he just gets stuck on a flying loop so can’t ever be attacked. He’s been like this for approx. 2 days prior to time of posting.

Whilst they were disliked by many (me included), they also said plenty did like them and they would continue on with them. Maybe as said, there is a hiatus whilst they ensure they marry up better with the in game story rather than replacing it – something that they were in danger of doing.

Also, there hasn’t really been much for them to write a story about since Halloween and the team probably have enough on with the holidays and also polishing up the final few chapters of this LS “season”.

In short – expect them to return unless they state otherwise.

Happy New Year from England!

Bug forum is better than general discussion. I doubt this forum is being looked at much over the hols unless a moderator is alerted to it by a player.

Also, if you haven’t already – an in game bug report is the surest way for them to get onto the issue rather than the forums. If enough ppl are reporting it, I suspect they’ll pick up on a trend quick enough and will be able to investigate.