Guild Wars 2

The AP ladder is largely meaningless to all but the top dozen or so who use it as friendly competition between each other. The only reason to hunt AP for the majority of players is for the rewards at every 500 points. It’s a long term carrot for players. I bet the vast majority of players don’t even know the ladder exists.

The way the first year and a half of the game was designed was around temporary content. That is gone – so many of us advised against this idea, yet it was the direction they went in and consequently, those AP and the playable content it was associated with are gone and they wont come back, with the exception of some festival ones.

Fair or otherwise, it isn’t going to change and temporary AP will continue through festivals and current events. The fact remains, the situation is as it is and unless they remove the ladders entirely (which I don’t see why they would), you will have to live with the game as it is. AP is a small part of this game and largely non-competitive, so personally I wouldn’t be worrying about it

The Skritt have learnt about industrial strike action!

Hope negotiations go well…

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Now old Destiny’s Edge had some troubles of their own,
They had a dragon that just wouldn’t leave Tyria alone,
They tried and they tried to get the dragon slayed,
They gave it to the Pact Commander thinking he’ll save the day.

But Zhaitan came back the very next day,
Zhaitan came back, we thought he was a goner,
Zhaitan came back, he just wouldn’t stay slayed.

The Pact Commander swore he’d kill Zhaitan on sight,
He loaded up his airship with guns and dynamite;
He waited and he waited for Zhaitan to come around,
Ninety seven pieces of the airship is all they found.

But Zhaitan came back the very next day,
Zhaitan came back, we thought he was a goner,
Zhaitan came back, he just wouldn’t stay slayed.

~EW

+1

Loved the cartoon

Musashi.1735:

Squee.7829:

Although we might not have physically SEEN him die ourselves, though, it is pretty much confirmed he has died. According to the story, there have been teams of researchers we’ve never met who went down to the actual corpse of Zhaitan and a large part of his spine is actually hanging up on the Durmand priory
I don’t think he’s coming back. Even as a zombie ^2

are you sure that’s Zhaitan’s spine?

The NPC in the Priory states it is Zhaitan’s tail.

The Tiger mini comes from a separate achievement. Yes, the tiger dens form part of the legendary process, but it is also accessible to anyone not doing the legendary journey.

When they designed the Chuka and Champawat journey, they clearly beefed up the collections over the 3 earlier 2nd gen weapons – hence why you also get the optional tiger cubs on your back as a permanent addition. The reason could simply be they didn’t think of it with Nevermore and have no desire to revisit those collections now they are done and dusted.

To confine Elder Dragons to seasons only would be utter folly. There is already enough feedback about how the Dragons have not been portrayed as dangerous or epic enough at times for us to kill them off like machine gun fodder so quickly in seasons. There would be a great deal of backlash and Anet will recognise this.

The next expac will almost certainly deal with Primordus. It may even deal with Jormag and bring in mutliple Dragons in some way. But even if next expac we somehow kill those 2 Dragons, that still leaves the DSD and Kralkatorrik.

As much as I would like either continent, I cannot see them opening up either just for the sake of it, when neither appear connected to the story and we are a long way off completing this main arc.

Beyond the already stated cultural issues with Cantha (remember Anet is owned by NCSoft based in South Korea, whilst Blizzard is an American company), one of the things Anet were concerned about early on in GW2 was spreading the community across too many maps and diluting the existing areas. Another continent would kill areas like HoT, SW, Bloodstone Fen and potentially bosses like Shatterer, Teq and Wurm which rely on groups. Now, they could try and realign the difficulty of those areas and make them more solo friendly, but that is a hugely time consuming effort. A new continent alone is going to take a great deal of time and resources, but to then go back and adjust maps as well is just going to increase that.

So yeah, maybe will see a new continent one day. But, “soon” is highly unlikely based on the current evidence and progress of the game.

Thanks. I don’t follow Reddit, so I missed that

Good news if they can manage it

Have they def stated one map each episode?

As a big mace user I’m on the fence with this one. I am sorely tempted, but it feels a little bit more like a black lion skin with particle effects.

I’ll probably succumb if I decide against making Meterologicus

The Exalted had not encountered a Mursaat before lazarus showed up. They specifically said all they knew about them was from what the Forgotten had mentioned. The Luminate would have had no idea Lazarus had absorbed so much power, so had no reason to be afraid of a single Mursaat.

I doubt they can rival his power. Defending Tarir and other battles would have been much more trivial if they were on par with him.

Episode? Def not. The inbetween episode breaks which are usually reserved for current events would work much better for this and not bog down the main story.

It depends if they have the technology to make Aurene appear only for you when you enter since the instance is public. I know they have done it with certain other items related to story (eg the dwarf seismic spheres which go from broken – fixed and with certain objectives associated with Hearts), but Aurene might have additional technological obstacles.

However, in principle, I agree. Things like this would help support this “Living World” idea.

Felahr.9830:

still no mastery. i dont think it actually gives a point

Mayatl definitely does have a mastery point attached. However, I don’t think it has an achievement attached so it may not be clear about rewarding it to you. It possibly means you already have it and you have forgotten.

edit: apparently the wiki says it is inconsistent in rewrading the mastery point, so I’m guessing there is a bug.

HoM is a reward system designed for those who bought and were loyal players in GW1 through its lifespan and wanted to continue into GW2. So yes, anyone coming into GW1 late or during the lifespan of GW2 would have to expect a reasonable amount of time and money to be spent to get the same rewards.

The Hall of Monuments is located in the final expansion zone where it was originally launched, so you need 1 campaign setting and EOTN to access it.

edit: Chad beat me to it lol

There should be plenty of mastery points left that arent adventures, but the easiest I’d say are;

Drone Race
Salvage Pit
Wings of Gold
(these 3 are easier to get gold than some are to get silver..)

Tendril Torchers
Bugs in the Branches

After that, maybe Beetle Feast or Flying Circus

I personally find the system OK as an in game player. Every person I’ve spoken to about joining the game or playing beyond the PS has baulked at buying the seasons in between.

I don’t really know what the answer is, since I’m OK with the system (well I’m used to it now, so it doesn’t bother me is more accurate), but I’m a dedicated player so my perspective is different and biased. The current model, does seem to be offputting to new players. I guess only Anet will know how offputting since they have the metrics for purchasers.

For ref to the OP – Anet stated that each previous expac would be included for free with the purchase of the new expac as well as core.

Mine increased slightly after a recent W10 update, which also causes the screen to flicker once before it loads in. It’s no big deal at the end of the day though, it’s only a few seconds.

I remember when loading screens were made line by line to make a picture, taking 30-40 mins or more!. Then it was 50/50 whether you had set the volume right on the cassette player and had to start all over again. You learned not to worry about loading times so much after that.

Them were the days ;D

Difference is that the Sons of Svanir exist because of Jormag and Jormag willingly accepts them as followers/minions so he can corrupt them as Icebrood minions.

Primordus appears to have no interest/ability/need in using intelligent races as minions or (that we know of) any interest/ability in communicating with them. So yes I guess the Flame Legion could follow/worship Primordus, but I’m not sure Primordus and his Destroyers wouldn’t just incinerate them on sight.

I have no real issue with the tokens being in there, but I have issues with the design of the Jp being so frustrating it doesn’t motivate me to want to even bother. If you are going to put tokens in a JP, it needs to be a JP which is either well designed or much lower difficulty to be accessible for more players.

Assic.2746:

The are a few things Ember Bay lacks though. There are 3 main outposts: Circus, Asuran Camp and Skritt’s Camp… and almost nothing happens in there. Outposts lack the event diversity. It’s Skrilla & Sloth Feeder all the time. I realize that there is more events out there, but I expected to face some problems, which are relevent to staying alive on the Fire Island Chain – food & water shortage. .

Totally agree with this. Each mini area needs a bit of variety. Even if its case of using the night/day system from VB in a simpler way to have just different events.

One of the great selling points of GW2 is the dynamic event system, but here we edged back to classic MMO, where you go to an outpost, do a couple of quests, that’s that area done. Sure you can repeat them, but I don’t think we’re really taking full advantage of what GW2 can do in these little areas.

Why does it make perfect sense though? What does Lazarus have to do with resurrecting the dead? He himself wasn’t dead, just severely crippled. If he had any power over resurrecting the dead, I can’t help feel he’d be demonstrating it by now.

Again they might be referring to Primordus’ movement as his influence/army rather than him physically. I’m not saying they haven’t retconned anything, but it is possible to take that wording and apply it differently. In fact it is very common to do so.

Maybe I am missing something, but isn’t it possible the Destroyers could have been in somewhere like Brisban w/o the need for Primordus to be nearby? Zhaitans minions spread far and wide after all.

The link below is why the skip dialogue button isn’t currently in the new style story journals

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-allow-us-to-skip-cut-scenes/first#post4604049

If you look across from the Southern Island, there is very little of the Northern island which you can see, which makes me think it is underwater. I suspect we would go to a different island in the chain.

edit: Having said that, I just noticed the map has been updated – on day one/two the overview map showed the northern island virtually touching – now there is a greater distance between the two islands

Either way, more of the same is OK by me!!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

jonG.8369:

One thing that’s important to note, for me at least, is that this new zone appears to be much less gpu/cpu intensive compared to other more recent maps. There are parts of VB/AB that bring my frame rates down so much it becomes very hard to play. Ember Bay is proof that you can have a visually stunning map with a lot going on without those sudden and annoying frame drops. I hope the devs keep this in mind as they continue to push forward with new areas to explore.

Odd. I had the opposite results from this map. Many places in the map are very hard on my computer. Underwater, for example. The first story instance is another example. Places with lots of fire or smoke effects, I believe, as well. Had to turn everything down as low as it would go.

My experience is halfway between you guys. I expected the smoke to really chug my fps, but only where the lava falls and smoke was most intensive did i have any real drop. After southson, i expected underwater to be unplayable. It wasnt, but then again there was nothing there to cause my fps to chug.

I was pleasantly surprised with the overall performance.

Just checked it and can hear the new music. I quite like it

I’ll check ours out later when I get a moment

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Squee.7829:

Primordus’ movement from the Shiverpeaks to the Ring of Fire is still a thing. They didn’t change that at least. The dwarf we find in the Ring of Fire confirms it if you go back and ask him about his history.

Forgot to comment on this. The thing is that Primordus’ movement from the Shiverpeaks to the Ring of Fire is the retcon. Older lore stated he’s been moving about since waking up, clearing out tracks of land deep underground (aka making the Depths bigger) and spawning destroyers across (subcontinental) Tyria (hence why we see them in Brisban, Kessex, Maelstrom, and Ascalon in EoD).

With the new explanation (aka retcon) we’re left wondering why the heck there are destroyers all over the place.

Is it possible do we think, that he woke up, cleared out the Depths and returned to his “lair” in the Central Transfer Chamber once his territory was marked out. Dragons appear to prefer a central lair to occupy.

The other possibility is that “he moved about” is a collective reference to his minions. Often when NPCs refer to Zhaitan or Mordremoths attacks, they refer to his army, but since everything is essentially linked back to the Dragon, the movement/aggression is referred to collectively.

Latest patch has some fixes

The dwarves are virtually wiped out and aren’t being replenished. The chances of any new race are extremely slim, but dwarves chances are pretty much zero.

Actually, you can make Mount Maelstrom erupt from Destroyer activity. If Megadestroyer is not killed, then the volcano actually erupts, spewing fireballs all over the region for a while.

If memory serves me correctly, there are instances in the game and story where Dredge tunnelling cause minor seismic activity or at least minor earthquakes.

There was a thread very recently in this subforum about Elder Dragon intelligence which had similar conclusions about Primordus due to (as far as we currently know) not corrupting intelligent races.

There has been no statistical info since the first anniversary.

This was from the last thread I saw which contained a dev response about the issue
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Please-allow-us-to-skip-cut-scenes/first#post4604049

If I get time, I’ll dig out the responses from the team as to why (atm) the skip button was removed when they went to real time cutscenes. It’s to do with causing severe bugs and unnatural behaviour in the world which will occur around the characters if the action is skipped.

For me, Silverwastes is one of the main JPs I judge any new ones against. Some reasoning to work out where to go without having to be signposted, beautiful to explore, difficulty not too high, an exclusive skin as a chance to drop and because the difficulty was just right, it made repeat attempts worthwhile to get the pick ups. Oh and most of all, it was fun – that bit that for me overrides all else.

This felt more like making the difficulty annoying just for the sake of it. When I listened to Josh’s comments on the preview blog, it sounded like a really fun, well thought out and designed JP. For me, those comments didn’t translate to the reality of what was released and it just wasn’t fun.

I think Kurfu summed it up best though

Amaimon.7823:

Randulf.7614:

Really? I thought the problem was with our character to be honest. Usually we are more willing to let our team members do their own thing and meet back later. Now it suddenly was an issue.

Personally i don’t think my toon should be ordering everyone around and having Marjory go off with Lazarus to keep an eye on him seemed like a good idea. Not sure what our objection was – she can clearly handle herself and Lazarus wanted to harm her, well he would have done so by now.

That changed with Caithe, its because of Caithe that the commander changed from ’we’re a team’ to ’I’m the boss, follow orders’

Well maybe, but we let Taimi do her own thing since then and as a child it would be much more appropriate to be ordering her around. And we wouldn’t dream of ordering Rytlock around. If Canach had said he was going along with Lazarus, I doubt we’d have fussed much either.

To me Marjory’s reaction felt more appropriate than mine.

Thanks for the links. I couldn’t find the dev response, but I didn’t really look over at Reddit.

He moved there because the magic from Mordremoth went south. It does seem a rather long way to detect a magical surge and there is every chance the DSD and Kralk could detect it as well depending how far away from the RoF they are now.

These threads remind me of something..

Ill try and find the dev response about dyeing weapons. It is a massive job to go back and add dye channels, which would generate a large patch and potentially some serious bugs. It was likely not chosen at launch to cut down workload.

Maybe their waking patterns are size based? Primordus looked quite small in GW1, whilst Kralk and Mord seem to me to be the largest. Smaller Dragons maybe require less to wake or maybe the larger ones took longer to absorb what they needed to rest again, hence the slight staggering.

Or maybe there is no reason or pattern. 200 years gap is quite insignificant compared to the interval.

Pyreo.8517:

I realise now how Mordremoth’s powers incorporated Zhaitan’s and how that was specifically mentioned multiple times in HoT

It was? I’m not outrightly disputing you, but can you point any instances of that, because I can’t recall any.

The old maps are still populated and you arent locked out of new gear beyond new stats. You still have full access to fractals, wvw and pvp as well.

The only thing you are locked from is the new maps and raids. Plenty play the old maps regardless as to whether they have HoT or not.

I would prefer them to be a lot more substantial. I like how they tell each areas story, but they are over so quickly, they are almost wasted.

Yeah I learned from HoT to ignore forums til I was happy I was past any spoilers when a dev posted about the death of Eir in a non spoiler thread. Its easy enough just to not go to them. Same with map chat – I turn that off until Im done.

I agree with not wanting to ignore the Depths. I hope we find a way to push Primordus back just so we can have the Depths to explore. There’s going to be a lot of unhappiness if we don’t get to return there I’m already concerned there are no more dwarves beyond “Rock Face” as it is, but to completely skip all that would be continuing to throw away more potential under the bus.

Hopefully they wont do that…

Or maybe the DSD becomes attracted to the magical increase in the south?

Whilst I’m not sure about this whole merging of Dragon powers into “super dragons”, if the DSD isn’t brought in until later, I wonder if they will find a way of using this power absoprtion to bring him closer to land so avoid the underwater fight problem.

Really? I thought the problem was with our character to be honest. Usually we are more willing to let our team members do their own thing and meet back later. Now it suddenly was an issue.

Personally i don’t think my toon should be ordering everyone around and having Marjory go off with Lazarus to keep an eye on him seemed like a good idea. Not sure what our objection was – she can clearly handle herself and Lazarus wanted to harm her, well he would have done so by now.

Yes, you can switch back and forth as you please using the story journal, without losing any progress.

cephiroth.6182:

Fully agree with op. The Chuka & Champawat lore collections (all but vol II obviously) were just great.

This. Loved the whole thing (except vol 2)