Guild Wars 2

Do you wander the World judging those who have been naughty or nice?

Because I’ve been good all year…promise…
. ….just sayin’

The auction house/Black Lion Trading company is located elsewhere in Hoelbrak – you can see it marked on your map as a gold circle with black scales inside. If your trader despawned, it is because you used an item which despawns after a few mins. They are designed for the open world convenience. The one I have mentioned is a permanent part of the city.

Every city has a black lion auction house. It does exactly the same as pressing “o”, with the addition of being able to collect your purchases

Excluding legendary, the highest gear in the trading post (TP) is exotic level, although you can craft ascended which is fractionally better in stats. Sigils and runes will improve those stats or other abilities. The other ways you improve stats are through;
- traits
- buffs (your skills or from players)
- food
- infusions (small stat buffs for ascended items)

A lot of the end game of the game revolves around cosmetic rewards. For you instead once you have full exotic gear (very quick and easy to get from many sources in game), then ascended item acquisition might be your best option.

The idea is sound (no pun intended), but to record all those soundbites and then re-record all the personal story for consistency and then all the expac new voice overs and then factor that in for future seasons and expacs…well it wont happen.

Even if it raised enough money, it’s a lot of development time, since it has to be scheduled in when a VA is available, which knocks onto delays in other developments and then scheduled when the studio isn’t being used for new dialogues…etc etc etc

It might seem a small thing and the idea has been suggested many times before and in theory, it’s a fun idea with merit, but realistically it isn’t practical. It’s one reason progressive games like MMO’s stopped giving voices to player characters

It has enough to unlock gliding within a couple hours and thats at a leisurely pace

The issue seems to be the over reliance on special effects in the zone. I fed this back on both betas and stress test, but it seems to be worsening with each subsequent beta. It could be a lovely looking zone, but pulsing light streams, intense steam and smoke and lots of other effects detract from the scenery so, so much. Its like an alien disco in the jungle!!

Having said that, there feels like improved optimisation in place. The new area felt smoother than before and much smoother than LA or SW. Possibly due to the severe reduction in mobs, but likely ongoing back end improvements.

It needed some tweaking, but sometimes I’m lucky to find a mob now let alone find anything dangerous to attack me.

If it’s a comparison between the 2 difficulties, I’d lean closer to how it was in BWE2. It was hard, but fun

It is def a bug. The ranger forum had the dev say they were looking at new pet feedback this bwe. Some have been able to feedback in that thread, some are replyijng they can’t select.

I’d prob remove the (clap, clap) part of the thread title and report this as a bug, rather than getting angry at the devs for overlooking the class, which they haven’t in this instance.

I’ve seen people with the wyvern pets running around, so it must be testable, but I’ve read a few posts which show some having the pet system bugging out, whilst others are running around with new pets just fine.

Step 1 – Complete the story instance. Start at SW and work through. If you have been through in a party, ensure your story step has updated throughout in the top right corner
Step 2- Fill xp bar (which you have done already)
Step 3 – gain a mastery point (I think you got one automatically when you entered VB)

After that you can use the mastery UI to get gliding.

They said floor and canopy would be open this beta. Roots are still out of bounds

Nothing from your main toons will be deleted no matter how it is used by a beta toon – gear, transmutations, mats etc. Everything the beta toon uses is merely a copy.

However, unless something changed with this BWE, you can’t remove your armour from your main chars, put it in the bank and have it available for beta. The game snapshotted the bank prior to the beta(s) and only what was in there at that time is usable. Nothing after.

Have you tried relogging? There are some bugs with the squad atm

Ayrilana.1396:

mexay.3902:

Squads are broken and now me and 10 others are stuck in a squad. The leader logged off and we can’t leave?

pls help anet

Restarting the game may fix it.

Yes, ppl in map are reporting squad related bugs seem to resolve when they restart the client

You need a beta char. The gathering point and portal is currently located at the zone in point to the beta map area. Then just join a group and off you go.

There are boatloads of people and a big glowing portal by the starting wp, you wont miss it

MrH.2591:

Gaile Gray.6029:

The third and final Beta Weekend Event is now live.

See ya in the game!

I wish, but I ordered the expansion from Amazon and it hasn’t shipped yet and by the time it does the beta will be over

It wont ship until launch

Anyone else getting error messages when trying to go from SW to Verdant Brink? When entering the story star is comes up with an error string and wont load VB

Seems OK now

I’m worried about Gaile’s network. First she’s pinging more devs than work for Anet, now she’s pinged more people than exist on the planet!

Something froggy going on around here…

Just as a side note, it might be better to save any of the gold from the forthcoming tips ppl have for the other parts in the recipe and craft the precursor once the expac launches.

DresdenAllblack.1249:

I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say ‘I like Dry Top.’

I like Dry Top!

To answer the OP, open world will always be primary, but current focus on raids exists because it is a new thing for GW2. We will see 2 more wings added for the HoT raids and then they will sit back and monitor feedback and metrics to decide whether and when more will be added.

If they are successful, they wont be regular addition due to the work needed to make one, but expect then more with a following expac.

DoctorDing.5890:

Thanks all. A definite consensus there. The Mystic Forge was something I had not even noticed and, yes, I’ve been diligently gathering and salvaging materials but not doing anything with them. I think I might be too new to sell at the TP just now but that will change soon enough.

You’ll be amused to know that although new to this game I’m certainly not new to GW1, having accumulated thousands of hours over several years (stopped in about 2009) so I’m now in the somewhat ridiculous position of running around GW2 sporting the GWAMM title whilst fumbling all those confusing Elementalist skills and being generally inept. Maybe I should stow the title until I feel I deserve it.

As for the guild there is no grand plan. It said it cost 1 gold and I thought “Hey. I’ve got 1 gold….”.
I’ll probably join a guild of old fat drunkards eventually but I want to learn the game my way first.

A couple of additional things, both you can ignore if you are already aware;

1) Until you learn more of the game, the TP is a better place to sell your materials than a vendor. Just right click the item, select sell at trading post and see what the sell price is at. You can then sell it immediately or list for a chance at a better price

2) Nothing wrong with remaining in your solo guild, but you can join multiple guilds. Many people have social guilds, dungeon guilds and wvw guilds and flick between as it suits them.

Again, you might want to state the country you are from so people can answer more accurately for you.

I think it depends if it is part of the continuing story or more orientated to just lore as a pure side story. I haven’t done the Arah explorable, but all I feel I am missing out on is some background and informative lore pieces. If the raid is the same, then that is fine.

If the raid is progressive story or has important continuity to Living World/future Expac stories, then there is a good chance of it coming back to bite, especially if players start blocking other players based on gear requirements.

A self contained story though would be essential for any raid so hopefully that is all it is.

SkiTz.4590:

Randulf.7614:

Coulter.2315:

You’ve had years to get Ascended I can’t believe suddenly now you’re upset you might not be doing your best in group content (cause you clearly haven’t

“We” have, but what about new and future players?

Who on earth said raids are for new players?

anet specifically stated this was their end game addition to the game.

You think a fresh lvl 80 is going to be able to do high lvl fractals or raids? NO.

They will eventually get there thou, seeing how its the only 2 things in the entire PvE system that have progression.

Raids are an attractive proposition to bring in new blood to a game. Anet made a business decision to design raids for an audience wanting challenging content. Whether they are veteran or new should not matter. And to say new 80s should feel locked out by their peers would not be good for the future of raids in my opinion.

Also i get you arent in agreement, but tone down some of your aggression towards fellow posters. This thread is perfectly capable of hosting sensible, reasonable discussion from both sides of the argument.

Coulter.2315:

You’ve had years to get Ascended I can’t believe suddenly now you’re upset you might not be doing your best in group content (cause you clearly haven’t

“We” have, but what about new and future players? This was a mistake Lotro made with Radiance. It had to remove it. TSW had a system which encouraged BIS gear, but didn’t require it. The community evolved and blocked anyone not in full BIS, which was ridiculous because you needed to run the instances to get the gear and as time went on, new players became more and more shut out from instances. 3 years on Funcom realised the problem and have basically handed out BIS gear for doing dailies, pvp and questing just to get new players into its instances.

Whilst GW2 doesn’t suffer in exactly the same way, getting ascended is not a fast process and is daunting for new players. People cheered when raids were added, but where is the future in making more raids if new and future players are unable to access them until they have gone through a drawn out process of obtaining what the community demands they bring with them?

If metrics show people not entering the raid, then why will they invest in more?

Since they want to go down this BIS route for the raids, then the clear solution would be to make ascended more accessible to get.

Suggestions for better or worse:

- better drop rate at bosses and in wvw
- less mats required at crafting
- Change cultural T3 perhaps to ascended
- Pvp tracks for ascended
- Guild missions to have a decent chance at ascended
- improve fractal drop rates
- lower the laurel costs for trinkets (slightly)
- Final reward for story in HoT ascended (once per account)

Regardless off good/bad ideas, leaving ascended obtaining in its current form is foolhardy if the game wants to bring new and future players into the game without feeling like they are shut out.

Of course if the community behaves and doesn’t block ppl not in full ascended, this whole issue will non-starter, but that’s a glorious situation I have little optimism will occur.

Eidolon is an old word meaning ghost or phantom. The “reflections in water” and “image of a god” are not literal meanings of the word, more re-interpretations.

An entertaining theory, but I see no connections between the 2 species whatsoever

I don’t think Anet have ever given a release time for a patch

No people are saying people should have access to raids and shouldn’t be gear checked on arrival. That is not condusive to a healthy community and is the crux of this thread. Not whether it should be “doable” by all.

SHould only 1% be able to complete it? Possibly, but that’s a % which can grow as people improve their play but the point stands it should only be doable by the best, most skilled, most coordinated. Not by those who repeated a monotonous grind or flashed their credit card to buy gear.

Should someone 2 weeks new be able to complete the raid? If they are good enough, sure why not. I see no issue with that. If people are arguing for non-skilled players to be able to complete the raid just because they own the game….as a non-skilled player I say…no, absolutely not.

That is impossible to answer. It will depend on what you do, whether you use boosters, time played per day etc etc.

However, they are a long term goal to fully complete. People were completing the early lines over beta weekends, but were reporting astounding xp requirements for the later lines.

I can’t rule out intense players finishing them quickly, but they are definitely going to keep most players going well into next year. And then they fully intend to add more masteries in the future.

I’ve been using the betas for performance testing as well as game testing. Hopefully will make some tweaks to my settings during this coming final beta

The technicalities of it are not best explained by me, all I can say is the effect they had on my PC was that it was either for me to upgrade or not play HoT. I simply couldn’t move in areas of highest smoke/steam density (which was most of VB and especially the hylek village)

My old PC was the same. The only question I can ask is, how does it perform in areas with heavy smoke effects. So the dredge area in Frostgorge or dry top outside of the sandstorm?

If you chug badly, then you will likely be down to under 10fps. VB is intense with smoke effects and other environmental gfx. It’s a little dazzling and intense for older PCs.

If you don’t and you suffer no performance issues in SW/Dry Top or major boss fights, you will prob be OK.

Nokaru.7831:

Randulf.7614:

The complaint is that gear should not be what will lock people out, skill is. What will happen is

Wow, you have a crystal ball that sees into the future?! Maybe you should use it for something much more meaningful like winning the lottery or saving people from assassination attempts. Why are you wasting it on making extremely accurate predictions of a video game?

I tried it on the lottery…sadly I’m still poor

You make a slightly fair point and I have edited to say “I believe will happen” since my “crystal ball” is based on 2 other MMO’s which suffered this identical problem and has had to make changes to that approach to fix this issue.

WingLegacy.7159:

Randulf.7614:

Bit of a shame. Skill will be still be the main requirement to kill the bosses, but to actually come out and make a comment endorsing Ascended will only trigger more people asking for gear checks. Gear check, inspects etc are the bane of MMO’s. They go against the spirit of teamwork and cooperation.

Currently this is an extremely small issue compared to other games, but will probably change come HoT now. This is meant to be the game which forgoes that problem and encourages teamplay not waiting around for the right classes and gear. It almost gets the former, but I’m not necs seeing the company encourage the latter.

Ascended armour is not something pleasant for most players to get. If it was, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue. Now, those coming into the game new, will be gated by other players requiring ascended before they can step into the raid. That’s not how GW should work.

If I am shut out of a raid, I want it to be because I am not good enough as a player, not because I don’t have someone elses perception of what items I should have on me.

Raids is to cater hardcore players this was request from them. Everything is GW2 is casual until now cause of the raids and of course hardcore content needs BIS gear and good skill. I really don’t understand whats the complain now.?

The complaint is that gear should not be what will lock people out, skill is. What could happen based on other experiences is

- vet players of skill without ascended will be locked out
- new players of skill wont be attracted to grinding a gear before coming to GW2 or trying the raid
- unskilled players will be locked out and wont have the chance to improve themselves by trying and failing the raid, but want to keep trying.

We know these “gear check” will occur, because precedent is set in other games and it already occurs here in some areas.

Players asked for challenging content based on skill, and much discussion has been had about not requiring BIS gear.

I absolutely agree with them adding challenging content which is for the top tier player, but the gaining of ascended is not hand in hand with being a top tier player and so other players shutting them out because of it is absolutely the wrong direction and should not be encouraged. Especially by a dev.

Bit of a shame. Skill will be still be the main requirement to kill the bosses, but to actually come out and make a comment endorsing Ascended will only trigger more people asking for gear checks. Gear check, inspects etc are the bane of MMO’s. They go against the spirit of teamwork and cooperation.

Currently this is an extremely small issue compared to other games, but will probably change come HoT now. This is meant to be the game which forgoes that problem and encourages teamplay not waiting around for the right classes and gear. It almost gets the former, but I’m not necs seeing the company encourage the latter.

Ascended armour is not something pleasant for most players to get. If it was, it wouldn’t be so much of an issue. Now, those coming into the game new, will be gated by other players requiring ascended before they can step into the raid. That’s not how GW should work.

If I am shut out of a raid, I want it to be because I am not good enough as a player, not because I don’t have someone elses perception of what items I should have on me.

No but it could be a connection problem unrelated to you or Anet. The ticket you sent will be picked up by a tech person and they will be able to assist you to trace where any connection issue lies. You may need to talk to your ISP if it is ongoing.

Tumult.2578:

That won’t solve the problem. Those skills fire off just fine when there isn’t 150 players around me. It only occurs repeatedly during large world boss fights.
It’s like the game is not inputting my commands because they take more than a split second and it has new commands to act on.
I can stand under the Karka Queen and hit F1 on my warrior and the icon for that skill will flash but it wont actually fire and the count down to refire never starts. It’s ready to fire constantly but wont.

That is skill lag. It sounds like your set up somewhere can’t cope with the heavy demands in those fights. I’d advise a support ticket though since skill lag can be an issue their end as well (altho possible unlikely here since there would be thousands of posts about it since patch). Either way, they might be able to resolve it for you or advise you how to fix it.

Reaper without doubt. It was fun during beta and I love horror themes.

Tempest just because it might yet compliment my ele. I’m staying open on to the idea

Chronomancer just for its originality

Events are your main source of xp gain. Monsters aren’t there for levelling purposes (although the killstreak boosts really make a difference). Depending on the event, you can level up with just a handful of successful events.

Kessex has tons of events going on so it should be easy enough to level through those. But if you are bored of that zone, you have no shortage of zones you can visit. Brisban to the West also is well stocked with events.

As for map completion, that will be based on POI’s.vistas/hearts – all of which give xp as you unlock them.

21-25 should take a couple of days at a reasonable rate of play doing the above. There is almost no grind in levelling here, so it’s just a matter of uitlising all of the game to level up.

23rd October with the HoT patch. That is a Friday if my memory serves correctly.

It was announced during TwitchCon

ABout a year and a half ago they fielded the idea back at the community to see why people wanted them and what be included in them

The matter has been silent until this week when Crystal said it is something they’d like to do what with raids forthcoming.

One can infer this is not on the immediate cards, but is something that you be more confident is going to be implemented. Perhaps in a feature patch next year.

Personally I believe it should have been in the game by now or launched with the raids. If the idea is to encourage more builds and swapping skills/traits around, that fundamentally requires a template UI to support it. Otherwise it’ll become an unintuitive process, especially with requiring to bring along different armour and weapon sets.

I believe Lotro has one. Those MMO’s that do have one generally the VOIP is terrible and the generally accepted stance is that ts/mumble/vent etc all do a better job, so let ppl use those instead.

External VOIPs have been the way forward for enough PC games for many devs not to warrant investing time into integrating their own.

Yeah I preferred Moot before the silly confetti and bits were added. It had a bit more class to it before.

There is plenty of worthwhile feedback on Legendaries and their looks, yet those never get acknowledged in favour of making things more and more cartoony. I haven’t seen the Warhorn issue firsthand, but it hasn’t escaped my notice to see the large thread all about it over the last year or so.

They feel very different to core maps. Whilst they are more path-like and feel more like twisty mazes, that confinement is counterbalanced by things like the open spaces for gliding, the many different nooks and crannies you can find and the fact that there are 3 “levels” to each zone, which we haven’t fully tested in beta.

This makes it more claustrophobic, but also much more explorable at the same time.

This will probably happen to a greater degree on launch day. Advice is either not to worry about it and just let the patch happen slowly or wait til non-peak hours and patch then.

If you are concerned about instructions on how the expac will join your game, don’t be. You just hit patch and let it sort itself out.

Buy gems, convert to gold, buy them from the TP. It is exactly the same essentially, just an extra step thrown in.

Spooky forum bug

I booked Halloween week off this year specifically because MMO’s like GW1, Gw2 (and TSW and Anarchy) take Halloween to such fun levels.

The fact that HoT launches with is just a bonus!

Sometimes I think it’s a shame the UK doesn’t invest in the festivities of Halloween to the same extent you guys do. Always seems like so much fun for Americans.

I would expect so. They don’t always show their whole selection right away

Yeah I did the same, fell asleep…forgot all about the blue eyes I wanted.

Lesson learnt to stick a post it note to my screen next time!

Whilst I maintain they should just keep the items in the store, all style items removed will return in the future. Well, apparently except bunny ears I’m repeatedly informed…

That would be a very odd way of doing it though. It would annoy me much more to draw from collections before bank. That would then mean I’d have re-deposit stuff from the bank into the collections each time, since the stuff in my bank is overfill from the collections tab.

Unless I’m missing something?