Guild Wars 2

I use a shield in all pve on my warrior. And I use it with a mace. I don’t really care if it’s lower dps, I have a great deal more fun with my set up than I do with any other warrior weapon set up by a long way.

I also see a lot of shields warriors in pvp

Back to your idea though, it is interesting, but the work involved to recode a core and fundamental feature would be phenomenal. It may not sound like it, but GW2’s code is intricate and changes to the fundamentals are often non-trivial. It’s also not broken, so they have no need to fix it. They would still have large balance issues regardless, moreso to prevent players just picking the same skills.

I don’t really wvw to be honest, but I am unaware of any major power creep. The big difference is the reward tracks which allows you to earn dungeon tokens, festival stuff, exclusive armour, HoT items and so on. They are identical to the pvp ones.

The finer details would suggest asking in the wvw forums and take what you can from any feedback there. As for skill balances, you will get mostly negativity about those and a lot is inaccurate or an over the top reaction.

To be honest if you are only 40, you might as well carry on with that toon and level up either via general pve or by jumping into wvw and seeing whats what firsthand.

There was a quest in the first year for a back item yes. It was fun and yes it is a shame it never returned, but it didn’t return the last 2 times, so it seemed clear they had dropped it. I’m not defending that they should have done that, but there was zero expectation this year it would return.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

BrotherBelial.3094:

He’s been there to fight every year since, just not this year. So this year we have less Halloween content.

According to the chart on the wiki, every year has been missing 2 events except the first year… so 2013-2016 has had an equal amount of activities: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Halloween

As far as new content, it’s all new to me! Every year except this one I was taking a break from the game ‘round this time. For the rest of ya’, sorry there’s nothing new to you, but I hope y’all can find some enjoyment. I think it’s a nice change of pace to my usual evening/weekend activities.

~EW

In fairness there really isn’t anything wrong with this year’s Halloween Vs last year beyond the insane prices. People forget the complaints against Lunatic Inquistion and some of the problems it had. It wasn’t as popular as many lead you to believe (not that I am not saying people didn’t enjoy it, but a lot hated it as well). Reapers Rumble I don’t even remember it was so long ago.

The only other exclusion appears to be a widespread number of doors in the open world. They were a nice touch for spreading Halloween outside of LA, but added nothing else and probably weren’t really used a lot vs what the Labyrinth offered.

So whilst it isn’t the strongest Halloween ever, it’s hardly the unmitigated disaster many have made it out to be. Hopefully Anet will actually take on board some of the feedback about grind and fixing the Lunatic Inquisition so it is ready for next year.

Love the idea behind it.

I wont ever get it due to needing to get into raids, but I think they’ve done a decent job with it

OK, well obviously you have HoT itself and all the associated maps, story, events and elite specs that go with it.

I’ll list stuff which I can update;

- Current Events. A series of open world dynamic events which enhance the background of what is going on post the events of HoT and tie in with the raid and Season 3 stories. They’ve been going on every 2 weeks approx. since the Spring an are still out in the open world. They are nothing significant, just achievement and lore enhancers.

- Season 3. We are 2 episodes into the story, including 2 new maps. You probably will need to buy episode 1 if you weren’t logged in during that time. So far they are of generally high quality. You need to do the story to access the maps.

- New pvp map

- WvW has the new map on rotation as one of the borderlands. A lot of focus is on WvW right now with community polls guiding development. WvW reward tracks are a big, positive addition this year.

- New legendaries were suspended after Chuka and Champawat (which was an excellent series of collections) and then re-activated with the new mace Eureka. They are still craftable, but no longer have the journey and collection the previous 3 had.

- SAB returned in April and is now an annual festival. Halloween is in place atm, but has been slightly reduced on previous years.

- 4 pvp ranking seasons have passed, with one more due this year

- a new fractal has been added and HoT brought 3 raid wings.

- 2 legendary backpacks were added (fractal and pvp) and legendary armour is….work in progress afaik.

GW still is pay to play – free to play is an optional heavily restricted account.

Prob best to say when you last logged in rather than everyone second guessing. Before Season 3, Before the expansion? Before Season 2?

That does look cool

Endless Soul.5178:

So far I’ve managed to get 33 Candy Corn Cobs, both from grinding the labyrinth and candy corn bought off the trading post. I’m not sure I can get the remaining amount of cobs needed in time.

The price for this mini is beyond insanity.

Yeah I have thrown in the towel. After 2 days of on/off grind I had less than 10 cobs. Realised to finish off Id have to keep it up, sell all my assets and not enjoy the experience.

Not really much point in a reward in a game if it isnt fun to get. I hope Anet take on board that festivals are about fun, not monstrous grind, or balancing the economy. Im not sure I understand why it is our responsibility to clear the TP candy supply.

Fairly certain they cant just flick a switch and it is in game. It is too late for its return now, all that can be done is to collate feedback for getting it returned next year.

Some ppl have reported getting items back they deleted prior to the implementation of the wardrobe. I have no idea how consistent they are with returning old items, but it could be worth a shot if they can trace you owning the item at some point.

You potentially might get some joy through Support. There is a precedent for it

Is it not still in the forge as a v rare drop? It was added earlier this year, but canr remember if it was perm or not

I think they are prices which take into account draining the accumulation on the tp. Im not in agreement this is the right approach, since I prefer festival rewards to be obtainable within the short span they appear in, rather than being fir the rich or carrying over year on year.

Half the amount would have sufficed. When the economy takes precedent over having fun during a festival, it takes a little of the fun out of things.

Thats just me, I appreciate others think differently on it.

Seems to me it is a lot more efficient to sell the bags and buy the cobs if you want the minis

The hat is prob on rotation. Gem store stuff for Halloween is never available from day 1, instead they stagger what is released over the 2 weeks.

And lol Sorudo.. I saw what you did there

Horror is the same as far as I can tell, Lich is def nerfed (happy to say)

Don’t forget to take into account we are stronger than previous years now more players have access to elites and better builds.

Fractals = short dungeons

Each fractal is assigned a number which reflects difficulty and rewards. At higher numbers, the same fractal will be more difficult, with added mechanics than it was at a lower tier.

At higher fractal numbers, you require Ascended (pink coloured gear) which you slot infusions (an item you slot into your gear bought from the vendors in the fractal hub) to counter something called Agony, which will damage you during later difficulties of the dungeon.

Mechanically they have changed over the last 4 years, but essentially you grab 4 friends, pick a level and off you go. New players are wise to start from level 1 and just work up.

Nobody knows and you wont get a dev to confirm or deny.

However, these things tend to be staggered through the festival, so I would expect it to appear anytime between now and month end.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

I didn’t see any, either, other than the one in the pic above.

I did see one previously, a day or two ago, and I’m wondering….I thought the GM names were supposed to be GM Someone, not Gm Someone (as in screenshot above). At least, that is what the Devs stated/posted before. I’ve seen the Gm twice now.

If you are referring to Gaile, that is Cm not Gm I believe. Prob for Communications (or Community) Manager or some such.

Gem store items generally rotate through a festival. They’ll prob show up at some point within the next 2 weeks.

Halloween is lasting at least 2 weeks. I expect outfits etc are on a rotation.

Might be useful to change the thread title to “Halloween Feedback” and have it used for merging other threads into. I think the only way to get a dev response or potential changes for next year is if there is one big feedback thread.

Yeah he’s been by the other NPC’s since patch. Look for the candy corn icons near the forge

What’s the decoration?

I found it a lot of fuss over nothing to be honest.

The large amount of negativity is more apparent since the ppl unhappy are the only ones really commenting. EVeryone else is either happy or getting on with it and don’t feel the need to comment on what they feel is a non-event for them.

Dirdyy.1648:

120.000 Candy Corn / 120 candy cobs for this cute black raven that will fit perfect my little asura necro?

You got me, take my money…

Haha yeah cost aside, it’s very cool

Cant see that it’s too small. I’ll take your word for it though

Mad King says…fix forum bug

Gaile Gray.6029:

My goal for this year, besides conquering the Clocktower and doing ridiculous numbers of Labyrinth runs, is acquiring that darling kitty, Mini Zuzu, Cat of Darkness. I love that little critter!

The Raven looks like my goal this year. 120 candy cobs seems a tad extreme…but something to aim for!

10 mins!!

I don’t think the scythe was added during the time they put old skins like the Greatsaw in the forge

Danikat.8537:

stale.9785:

Danikat.8537:

I must have missed something, I thought the only update we were getting on Tuesday was Halloween.

What changes are you so worried about?

Big ole marked post by Gaile, titled “Upcoming balance changes”.

I guess this is why I could never be a ‘meta game’ player. Even though my main is a druid I looked at that as a list of tiny changes to skills I’m not sure I use and promptly forgot all about it.

I think the only times a balance patch has affected how I play was when they completely changed dervishes in GW1 and when they removed ground-targeting from ranger traps in GW2. Other than that I tend to look at the updates, decide I really can’t understand why it matters if a cooldown is 4.5 seconds or 5 seconds or whatever and go back to playing.

I’m pretty much the same and agree entirely with the dervish comment. A few GW2 ones have irked me (like the Reaper ice damage change), but they are only ever minor annoyances.

Haven’t bought gems for about 6 months and I probably wont until I am happier with the direction of the game.

Having said that, I am notoriously fickle and should something amazing appear in the store…principles will be overlooked

Tomorrow at patch time is usual.

I agree with bringing back the older items, but haven’t been keen to do this in the past. Hopefully the fact that they brought the molten BL weapons is a sign of changing from this stance.

I choose Tranton in the end, but he cured me before giving me a broken shadowstone. Apparently there is a reforged version, but because of the order the achievement ticked off in, the broken one can’t be converted into a reforged one now the achievement is complete.

Yeah our character is hardly blameless in the slaughter stakes. We have wandered into Skritt and Hylek villages slaughtering without discrimination. Same with Jotun and Ogres.

And that is not including all the poor bunnies slaughtered just to up our shield use achievement…

Thanks for the update Gaile.

As feedback, I’d like to see the context for the changes. Once upon a time, the balance team did blogs or forum discussion around proposed changes. These at least gave a clearer picture as to why such changes are felt necessary.

Whilst you’ll never get away from the inherent negativity balance changes and nerfs will generate, it will help with re-building transparency and community relations.

Do you mean the option to stat swap ascended jewellery like armour/weapons?

Elites every time. They add more depth and variety and a goal to work towards than adding in new weapons. Weapons dont always act like they logically would in the gw universe, so even if they added say a Great Axe, it doesnt necs mean it would like you were fighting with one, so or me its less exciting to think of any being added.

Nevermore has extra collections, needs more mats and the precursor invloves high lvl ascended crafting

Bifrost is less complex in comparison (but, arguably less fun)

I think they should leave things alone. Some of the legendary weapon changes have been necessary, others have piled on effects too much and in a couple of instances, to the detriment of the weapon entirely.

Constant tweaking and changing I’d rather not see personally – there is a point where you can go too far with it imo

There werent any in GW1 either so I guess they are extinct. The closest we had were the Simians which were more baboon like iirc and lived in the southern Maguuma Jungle near where Rata Sum and The Grove is.

There is a little known Norn spirit of the Gorilla a cording to the wiki. Perhaps indicates they were wider spread in the distant past.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Randulf.7614:

Always torn on things like this. It’s great some players get something fun they wanted and that it funds the game, but a part of me feels like each time things like these appear it takes the game further away from having its own identity/theme.

I guess it keeps the game going ultimately

Since Cat Ears were a rather popular part of Guild Wars (One), I don’t think their return (to GW2) takes the game further away from having its own identity/theme. More like a nod to its past identity. Just my opinion, of course.

Fair enough. I had no idea they were in GW1 as I never saw anyone with them.

I still think they dont fit, but it is less an issue if they were part of GW1

The labyrinth is always my fav and since Halloween itself falls on a Monday, that means we get at least 3 weeks this year \o/

Not sure I will pluck up the courage to do clocktower though………..

Always torn on things like this. It’s great some players get something fun they wanted and that it funds the game, but a part of me feels like each time things like these appear it takes the game further away from having its own identity/theme.

I guess it keeps the game going ultimately

It has been buggy today

They’ve changed how they build hype since HoT. It’s very much more low key nowadays. Since Halloween is a guarantee and usually established year on year in terms of content, they prob feel no need to hype something that essentially sells itself.

Ironically one appeared minutes after I posted.

It was just weird one hadn’t popped in a week when I was used to seeing them daily. No matter now though.

At least you have a choice. I haven’t even seen a vision since the last patch to get the achievement started…