Guild Wars 2

Gaile Gray.6029:

Thelgar.7214:

Gaile Gray.6029:

What do you guys think about forging them?

Assuming they can be put into the Mystic Forge…

Honestly I’d prefer a vendor – turn in X number of kits and buy a specific dye. I have 33 of the first kits, 19 of the second and 2 of the third so far and 6 dyes from a single kit that I don’t have. Depending on how the forging would work, most likely I’d be somewhere between throwing them away and it not being significant compared to actually picking dyes I’d want, but it would work better for others at least.

I do not anticipate that the developers are considering adding another vendor for this once-a-year item. I was looking at the options that we currently have at hand. I’m most interested in learning if the items can be put into the Mystic Forge. I have so many characters on so many accounts, I have to figure out who would be eligible for the birthday gift today.

The problem is, those who have almost are the dyes would not benefit from a mystic forge combine which would take 4 useless dyes and make 1 useless dye (from their perspective).

Perhaps “special” dyes or BL dyes or whatever they get categorised as can be salvaged for say 1-3 BL scraps as well as pigments.

Personally I’d have thought the easiest solution would be to unbind the dyes so they can be traded or given away to friends.

You are welcome.

I finish mine tomorrow!

Makai.3429:

GW2 will never be able to match the depth, complexity, and agency of CRPGS like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Baulder’s Gate, etc. I’m not slamming the writers, either: it’s just too much for an MMO to take in unless it is centered on roleplaying (Ultima Online). I liken the story to watching the Power Rangers show while the game is buying the toys and hanging with your friends.

I do partly agree with this, although Secret World has done it exceptionally well. That is partly because it tells a story indirectly, which builds towards a greater narrative and partly because horror works better that way.

What GW2 does exceptionally well, is in the open world stories. Verdant Brink is a great example as are most of the LS3 maps. There are also some brilliant map stories throughout the core maps as well. Here the writers are able to let themselves go a lot more and fantasy is much better suited to short, concise stories as well, rather than the bloated episodic, serial style it has (as a genre) devolved sadly into.

Whilst the writers get a huge amount of flak for the central story, often justifiably, they get nowhere near enough credit for the vastly superior map stories they create.

OK, you are on the exact same point I was this morning.

You have the following 2 items;
Element of Fire
Element of Earth

Both of these need to be combined with a druid runestone each and that will check off
Volcanic Runestone and Earthen Runestone. According to your collection you have Element of Fire and Element of Earth somewhere on a character.

Once that is done, take ALL your runestones to Kodama, hand them in and you will complete.

Destroyer’s Rest is for taking the Aestus, Ignis and Desecrator Runestones to him
Elemental’s Rest is for handing in Charged, Glacial, Earthen and Volcanic RUnestones

Let me login to mine and I can explain it clearer

The dialogue, the presentation, the overall tone has vastly improved since core days. It’s the direction which divides players the most. HoT was too short imo and needed to be 3-4 times longer for an expac story. Lots of story was cut due to time constraints, some which felt detrimental to the overall lore of the World. I got to Dragons Stand and the imminent rescue of Trahearne wondering what Act 2 of the story would bring. Whoops..

There are still hanging threads and most noticeably in LS3, too many extra narratives which prevent the core story following as well as it should, using twists and surprises for the sake of it rather than telling a cohesive story.

Overall it has improved, but it is still wobbling all over the place for me.

Toan.7326:

Randulf.7614:

I think you still need 2 more druid stones. One for the fire and one for the earth runes. Then you can hand those into Kodama and complete.

Im having 3 in my bag. hmmmm

Then combine them with the fire and earth ones which should be in your inventory unless they are on a different character

I think you still need 2 more druid stones. One for the fire and one for the earth runes. Then you can hand those into Kodama and complete.

EnidLarr.1478:

so my account has to be at least 12 months old to get a birthday present?

A character must be 1 year old to get the 1 year present and so forth for each character

Adry.7512:

Randulf.7614:

Also, there is nothing to say Primordus, Kralk and Jormag could crush the other Dragons. We already saw how destructive Mordy was and his weakness was inside the Dream/mind. Combined with his enormous physical reach within the Maguuma and beyond, he would be difficult to crush.

Zhaitan was heavily weakened when we encountered him and never saw him at his peak, so it is difficult to say how powerful he could be, beyond what the LS3 lore journals showed that he defeated a powerful Mursaat force when they attacked (can’t remember if that was with the Forgotten or not). Lets not forget his rising brought with it an entire landmass.

We do not know how powerful Primordus was in comparison, all we saw outside his dormant state was the bloated form in Draconis Mons where he had grown massively in size and power after gorging on the extra magic there (my assumption anyway).

We know nothing about the DSD apart from it is out there, possibly soaking up magic unchecked. It could be the most powerful. And Kralk was last seen flying off after nearly being defeated. Has he soaked up more magic given his distance? Is he weakened? That we don’t know either.

TDLR: I wouldn’t put much thought into who is stronger than who with the DRagons. They all seem roughly on par when you take out each others mitigating circumstances/weaknesses

You made some strong points. Regardless I do it based on awakenings and energy that the game leads me to assume they consumed.

Do bear in mind, Kralk was one of the last to wake – a century after Zhaitan for example who then consumed a great deal more energy than Kralk who didn’t have time between rising and the battle Vs Destinys Edge to continue consuming more and has had maybe 8 years to bolster his powers.

However, this whole discussion does provoke greater interest in the previous risings. I would love to explore forgotten/lost/ancient texts on any of the previous risings and see how the Dragons manifested themselves and their attacks on the World.

Maybe one day we will see fractals explore eras of these times. I think that would be a lot more fascinating than some of the more recent ones we have had, especially as the Elder Dragons are the central theme of the game. and story.

Nedeus.8251:

Weird. I haven’t received any gift yet.

It will only appear on a character that is 5 years old today. If a character is created later than 5 years ago then it will appear 5 years from that date.

Character specific appear in the mail. The single account birthday gift will be a pop up box.

Osby.5390:

Um sorry what trailer? I feel like I’m missing out here.

It’s less trailer, more the end cinematic of One Path Ends which sets up the expansion

Don’t watch if you haven’t done the last episode

The bosses themselves also drop the chest as a very rare chance. I have at least 2 chest pieces from Matriarch.

Best bet though is to look for a T4 organisation during peak hours on lfg. They still happen (just) often enough for you to find a group.

Also, there is nothing to say Primordus, Kralk and Jormag could crush the other Dragons. We already saw how destructive Mordy was and his weakness was inside the Dream/mind. Combined with his enormous physical reach within the Maguuma and beyond, he would be difficult to crush.

Zhaitan was heavily weakened when we encountered him and never saw him at his peak, so it is difficult to say how powerful he could be, beyond what the LS3 lore journals showed that he defeated a powerful Mursaat force when they attacked (can’t remember if that was with the Forgotten or not). Lets not forget his rising brought with it an entire landmass.

We do not know how powerful Primordus was in comparison, all we saw outside his dormant state was the bloated form in Draconis Mons where he had grown massively in size and power after gorging on the extra magic there (my assumption anyway).

We know nothing about the DSD apart from it is out there, possibly soaking up magic unchecked. It could be the most powerful. And Kralk was last seen flying off after nearly being defeated. Has he soaked up more magic given his distance? Is he weakened? That we don’t know either.

TDLR: I wouldn’t put much thought into who is stronger than who with the DRagons. They all seem roughly on par when you take out each others mitigating circumstances/weaknesses

Again, conceptual art like these do not take into account size, scale, power etc. It is a well used, tried and tested technique used in trailers, prophecy stills and set up artwork in games and other forms of media. GW2 uses it in the core campaign showing a considerably smaller and different looking Zhaitan in cutscenes.

I still think it is one of the ED’s but in a generic, symbolic representation of one being killed/attacked by Balths minions rather than being in any way accurate. I doubt even a Lieuitenant could be killed by a spear thrust in its face.

Adry.7512:

Randulf.7614:

Either it is a lieutenant or it’s conceptual and not to scale and only represents them killing an Elder Dragon. I personally think the latter and it is meant to look prophetic rather than them actually having killed one.

But it’s not an elder dragon. Could be a leuitenant.

It could be an Elder Dragon. Conceptual and prophetic artwork does not take always take size and scale into things as it is representational.

silvermember.8941:

Manasa Devi.7958:

They’re not in the presents. They come with the 5th birthday achievement, so only 2 per year. (I picked shield and scepter.)

Just 365 more days for another 2 of them, presumably!

2 pEr account not per character or per year.

2 per account, but we may get another selection for year 6 like they did with the backpacks

Sounds pretty cool selection. One might even say…

GLORIOUS

Did we get another pack choice? Also, is it a weapon for each toon who is 5 or 1 choice a year like the packs?

The newer GW2 music has been exceptional and fitted better than some of Soule’s GW2 specific stuff for me, although I get a huge pang of nostalgia for some of the old GW1 tracks.

One day I hope to hear this in GW2 though..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejafLR6jb0g

Either it is a lieutenant or it’s conceptual and not to scale and only represents them killing an Elder Dragon. I personally think the latter and it is meant to look prophetic rather than them actually having killed one.

80 is maximum level.

From HoT onwards you earn mastery point levels which unlock localised abilities such as gliding and various gliding skills, bouncing mushrooms, stealth detection, aoe loot etc etc

Mastery point ranks are shown when you hit level 80

You can’t buy the physical box of PoF.

Yes the gems is worth it, there are so many things you can buy from skins, to storage etc and many more skins likely with the expansion. Otherwise you can always convert the gems to gold.

This is an anniversary sale so likely end of August it’ll be gone if not sooner.

I loved them, well maybe not Dragon Stand, but that was simply because it was more meta than explorable, but otherwise I had and still have, great fun in them. It’s also nice to still see them so well populated 2 years on.

The story was OK, but rushed and maybe a third-quarter the length an expac story should have been considering how much needed to be told.

Not sure why people go on about “no one plays this game anymore”. Every map I’m in seems very well populated.

Amazon is fine, but buy from them not a market vendor. It’s an important distinction.

As above you can skip rhe story if you want your elite.

If you are doing the story in order though, you are not far from the end of the core story arc. Then you have the video recap of the first living world season then you would purchase living world season 2 (8 episodes) then you have HoT.

Open your story journal from the Hero Panel (H). Each locked episode will have a purchase option as I understand. That will unlock both story and relevant map (they are interlinked, you can’t access the map w/o the story)

Don’t forget, you will have an influx of new and returning players to bolster HoT maps

Bandrell.4357:

Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who wants easy fractals. I’m not very good at the game, and I won’t ever pretend to be. But I like group content, and these new fractals just kick my behind all the time. It’s stopped being fun, and there’s no other group content for me that’s as visually impressive and storied as this.

I like them too. I have no issue with hard fractals or perhaps more complex fractals is the better phrasing, but they belong further up the tiering. Shattered Observatory is not aimed at players like us in its current form for tier 1.

I want them to return to the idea of “lunchtime” dungeons, at least for the early tier. That is what made fractals appealing. Proto-raid mechanics have their place in fractals, but at the higher end where players expect and soak up the challenge.

I wasn’t a fan trying level 25 for the first time. Felt too long and bloated in terms of mechanics. Fractals were meant to be short bursts of instances, this did not achieve that and felt like it had mechanics for the sake of mechanics rather than having ones that fitted the fight (bouncing balls..???). Instead the mechanics bogged the fights down and made them frustrating (the pylons).

There was no real story progression to each fight. You could take out a boss fight and it wouldn’t matter at all. They each felt like they could belong to their own fractal and had no relation to each other. The post-Arkk boss story was interesting. Wasn’t really understanding half of it mind you, but that was likely me not paying enough attention.

The action button was an unnecessary extra to the fractal as well – it added nothing, given they added separate jumping mechanics already. I saw the dev comment early on, but the action button should be used where its relevant (Snowblind is a good use for example) not used just because it is there.

On the plus side, it looked gorgeous as a fractal – one of the finest looking ones. The only issue here was that in the first fight, the orange boss ground attacks were lost in the gold flooring. We need better contrast for floor Vs Aoe attacks. Otherwise, great job on the visuals.

Of the 3 newer ones, Nightmare is the best fit as a fractal. Short, good learning curve, sensible and relevant mechanics and visits an interesting snapshot from the Mists. – it ticks the boxes for what the design philosophy behind fractals wkittentered Observatory for me misses the mark on too many levels. I hope to see a return to the classic fractal formula next time.

Ashantara.8731:

From what I have heard, the actual implementation of LWS1 was anything but fun.

Partly, but not entirely accurate. It certainly started off that way and the implementation overall wasn’t a popular way forward or one which was a good model for the game’s future population either. To say it wasn’t fun though is where it is inaccurate. Not every episode was good, but I enjoyed (not including SAB, WIntersday and the superior Halloween);

- Queens Jubilee
- the Zephyrites and the Bazaar with the vote
- Southson (not the first time round though, that was a disaster)
- Marionette (a brilliant world boss similar to Vinewrath)
- Tequatl (I include it because back then it was challenging and had a story arc)
- Nightmare Tower
- The Invasions (limited scope, but was the original zergfest and was kinda fun)

and to top it off, the quite excellent Battle of Lions Arch and Battle on the Breachmaker, which remain some of my favourite content.

So as a whole it was a an utter disjointed mess which was elongated out for well over a year, with very little narrative to pull it along. Gameplay wise, it had some great individual moments, they just weren’t enough to repair the damage temporary content with a threadbare story was doing at the time.

Should only affect mob drops or bags that specify they are affected (like at Lunar New Year), not chests from JPs or bosses.

I think it is over complicating the system. Either they open up or they leave as it is designed to be. I don;t see them being changed, but adding an extra layer just feels needless to me.

I love the Moot!!
Disco is life!

Niche guilds exist, that is not a problem. In fact many players have a main guild, with niche ones for specific activities. My guild is tiny and so we dont really have numbers to do much, so some rep to wvw guilds or farm guilds etc. This philosophy is a part of the game’s foundation.

Requesting the devs implement a feature which discourages a broader community is unlikely to yield anything, as it not the direction they would likely want the game to go in. However, you are free to set your own rules to a Guild within the already set confines.

Double tap on dodge might be an option in the options panel. I think there is a tick box on the first settings page for it, possibly under above the raising camera heights (which may or may not work on 1st person )

May i also suggest using the QoL sticky thread at the top of this subforum, as the devs refer to that. At weekends especially, individual threads generally get lost very quickly

Pretty certain it will continue to be a choice between the 3. I would prefer however, a similar option to GW1, where you could switch at will to any Guild Hall without recapping each time. Eg banking a Guild Hall map once unlocked

With cross Guild chat and no real bonuses from repping anymore (outside of WvW), why does it really matter that players rep multi guild? The game is specifically designed to encourage it, so what makes it such a problem.

Whilst I’m sure the OP may be good intentioned, it feels a little…controlling to have Guild Leaders misuse their power to set whether a player can rep others or not.

I’m failing to see much benefit to the overall health and cooperative spirit of the game.

I’ve been there all week (EU) and activity has been very high, largely to due to Aurora. The reason it probably seems less active is that the Aurora achievements are quicker and easier to do there, so players are in/out in a shorter time frame and it was never a challenging map versus the others (except Jades and the Jade boss which was always like you are seeing it)

Santa Charr = the only good Charr in all of Tyria-dom!

Hurrah for Santa Charr!

Because I enjoy the game

Duelling is fine, but it belongs in pvp modes. It always brings a level of toxicity to games in pve even with an opt out. Open world should eremain a cooperative environment. Anet are generally pretty good at keeping modes separate and I can’t see them ever recoding open world space to be pvp compatible when the appropriate spaces exist

They could get round the multiple gear tabs, by having multiple gear screens. And the equipment would actually be equipped in that screen/tab but inactive until you switched to that build. If they then moved the traits into the same menu as the gear, that should make it easier to keep things together.

If that makes sense.

Hope so. There’s a few Nightfall tracks I’d like to see too.

Maybe if not, we can add them to the Guild Hall as unlockable tracks

I think it would take away some of the uniqueness of the elite spec, altho I wont deny it would probably encourage me to try other elites more. I’m interested in Scourge for example, but don’t want to drop my greatsword.

I think the system works well as it is though

Calcifire.1864:

Randulf.7614:

Pve just doesn’t provide the right sort of information for them since pretty much everything is effective.

you realize when people talk about PvE they actually mean “Raids and challenge mode fractals”, not open world, right?

That is not true, people talk about it as either. The OP specified running around Elona which is Open World and that was the context I used.

In order to effectively gather data on the elites, it makes more sense to have players confined to the competitive modes. Pve just doesn’t provide the right sort of information for them since pretty much everything is effective.

This seems like a sensible decision from a developer point of view.

Full access is 4 weeks away, so it wont be long before we can go into pve with them and hopefully better polished as a result of this.

Ashantara.8731:

Hannelore.8153:

This has been brought up many times and they pretty much said they can’t. They need those lengthy dialogues and cutscenes to set up the mission.

It’s more or less serving the purpose of a curtain in a play, and its a biproduct of the game being an MMO that runs on servers insteads of an offline game. The last I heard there was no viable workaround or solution.

Of course there is: Give us back those sweet dialogue cutscenes from the original campaign! They can be skipped, no problem.

Which the overwhelming feedback was from the players that they were largely disliked. Sure, there are players who do like them, but they changed them based on feedback.

I’m sure they are looking at workarounds, but going back to the old way is unlikely an option.

Cloesd.3025:

Randulf.7614:

Cloesd.3025:

Randulf.7614:

Duelling should be nowhere near pve. There has never been one convincing argument why it should be added to pve.

However, I can see no reason why duelling couldn’t be added to the pvp areas, either via the lobby or a separate space like we have with the Guild Halls. It makes sense and belongs there, whilst it is utterly out of place in pve.

Because just like in real life it’s human nature to want to work hard to get stuff and use advantages accrued in the past to secure an advantage in combat. (Or persevere in the face of odds, ie; I’ll duel you naked and still win).

I’m afraid I have no idea what you are trying to say in relation to my comment about duelling not fitting in pve but agreeing it fits in pvp, sorry!

I mean the difference between PVE and PVP in this game is that in PVP generally your gear is ‘maxed’ and your level is maxed. (sPVP atleast). Nothing you do in-PVE really effects your player vs player abilities.

This I think is an artifact of 2012 when GW2 was released, Everyone wanted to be “Muh Esports”, (a fad that has thankfully mostly died outside of Mobas).

Being able to fight other players with your character, your gear setup and your skill choices at any level would probably improve the game because it does appeal to that part of humans that wants to develop ‘themselves’ and then use that development against others. It’s a huge part of competition.

PvE isn’t competitive though. It’s specifically set up to be cooperative and attracts players due to its cooperative nature. It’s what in part put GW2 on the map in the first place. That would eliminate any need and a great deal of desire to have duelling brought over into it where it doesn’t belong.

Cloesd.3025:

Randulf.7614:

Duelling should be nowhere near pve. There has never been one convincing argument why it should be added to pve.

However, I can see no reason why duelling couldn’t be added to the pvp areas, either via the lobby or a separate space like we have with the Guild Halls. It makes sense and belongs there, whilst it is utterly out of place in pve.

Because just like in real life it’s human nature to want to work hard to get stuff and use advantages accrued in the past to secure an advantage in combat. (Or persevere in the face of odds, ie; I’ll duel you naked and still win).

I’m afraid I have no idea what you are trying to say in relation to my comment about duelling not fitting in pve but agreeing it fits in pvp, sorry!