I haven’t been able to play much at all for several days, and it looks like there’s not a lot of gametime in the immediate future either. I’m trying to get my GW fix by reading forums at the office, but there’s so much hate about grinding, rng, zerkers, phiws and every other controversial topic imaginable going on right now that it’s really making me depressed. Sometimes I wonder if I should even try playing meta dungeons any more, I just don’t have the time to practice enough to ever dream of getting good enough to not be a burden to decent players, and I’m just too old to get there without much practice .
Anyone know of a lone island with a good computer rig but without kids, husbands, co-workers or bosses where I could spend all my time playing games?
Why do people hate min-max-ing?
Because math doesn’t come easy to many people. This game is a great one to play after a busy day of job and family, more involved and immersive than facebook games, but you can do pretty much all content without needing to spend too much time calculating your optimal equipment and skill rotation.
There’s people that enjoy that kind of thing, and there’s people that don’t. GW2 attrackts a lot of the later group, and they don’t care to “work” on numbers and optimizing when the game gives them the enjoyable experience they’re after just as well without that “work”.
i would love it if beta tokens only drop for ppl with less then 5K AP or less then 100% luck, the outcry of farmers and zergers would be a joy to watch
What’s the correlation between 5k AP and farming/zerging? Just playing casually but continously from early after launch, you can easily get to 15k+ without any need to farm/zerg explicitely. Now if you had said 25k AP …
What everyone has explained is that the game focuses on the fun of cosmetics, so the bar of expectations in how well i can optimize dps is rather low. Different route for a MMORPG, but not having to be confined into particular goal is a nice break.
You are free to optimize dps in this game, too, but again gear is only a part of the whole picture. Optimizing also includes knowing the encounter mechanics, when to evade, interrupt, chain specific skills and so on. Knowledge of boss attacks, their animations and cooldowns is at least as important as your equipment, and a trait build with slightly lower max dps, well-played in a group it is optimized for, may end up with higher group dps than traiting/skilling for personal dps only .
But yes, it all comes down to you deciding what you want, whether you want to learn how to do the “perfect” dungeon run, want to hunt cool cosmetics, or just want to relax in a fantasy world with like-minded people.
Question: conversion of skill points into hero points/mystic forge material on existing characters.
a) Ele with full world completion, ~500 unspent skill points, and fully unlocked utilities. She has spent a few hundred skill points over the years on materials for ascended crafting and mystic forge recipies. How many hero points and how many mf points will she have after conversion?
- hero points equal to the total level-up plus skill challenges she did plus mf points equal to currently unspent skill points?
- hero points equal to the skill points needed to unlock all her utility skills plus mf points equal to currently unspent skill points? if so, how can she gain more hero points should she need them for elite specs or similar?
- hero points equal to the total level-up plus skill challenges she did plus mf points equal to currently unspent skill points minus skill challenges she did?
b) ranger with full world completion but no unspent skill points (again spent on forge and crafting). How many points will he get?
- hero points equal to the total level-up plus skill challenges he did plus mf points equal to currently unspent skill points?
- hero points equal to the total level-up plus skill challenges he did, but no mf points since he doesn’t have unspent skill points?
- hero points equal to the total level-up plus skill challenges he did but negative mf points since he already spent the extra skill points from challenges?
- hero points equal to the skill points needed to unlock all his utility skills, but no mf points? if so, how can he gain more hero points, since he already did all skill challenges?
c) mesmer with all utilities unlocked from skill point scrolls but no skill challenges done. How many points will she get?
- hero points equal to the level-up points she had gotten so far plus mf points equal to the additional skill points spent on unlocking utilities?
- hero points equal to the level-up points she had gotten so far but no points for additionally unlocked utilities?
- hero points equal to the skill points needed to unlock all utilities (in effect making more hero points available to her than to other characters) but no/negative mf points?
Is there any way you are figuring current trait unlocks into the conversion, accounting for the fact that a number of unlocked traits across the player base were bought from profession trainers for skill points (and gold)?
you cannot increase viable choices by cutting out choices, you can only increase viable choices by having better choices.
How do you know you won’t have better choices in the new system? They’ve explicitely stated that they have overhauled the whole trait system, changing and merging traits all over the place. We will have to adjust all our builds to that, and there’s no telling as of now how viable the different combinations of new (as yet unkown) traits and traitlines will really be.
“Old skill points in excess of those earned by leveling and skill challenges will be converted into crafting materials for the Mystic Forge. Items and activities that were previously repeatable sources of skill points will now also provide that same crafting material.”
Quoted from part 2 of the specialization blog post. Somewhere in those posts they also refer to it as “new magic forge currency”. To me, it sounds as if our excess skill points will stay the way they are now, only with another name (and probably icon) and restricted to trading with the forge trader exclusively.
Whether to use the scrolls now or wait, I have no idea. There are open questions about that conversion that will hopefully be answered in the AMA later today.
What exactly is the end game content, and how do all you find it fun? Because farming for gear when it’s acquisition won’t be noticeable in these large end game events really makes me think twice about finding gw2 exciting
Endgame in this game is what you make of it. Sounds stupid at first, but when you think about it it opens up a variety of things to do.
Looking at my friends and guildies, I see a ton of different “end games”, all in one game.
Some are into dungeons. They spend their time getting to know each dungeon path inside-out, what traits and utilities benefit which encounter, and how to get the most out of their characters and parties. They like to learn how to duo or even solo the bosses and encounters, how to skip past specific mobs in different ways, and how to best counter boss mob mechanics.
Others are into open world PvE. They like to map-complete with multiple alts, do world bosses, farm crafting materials and generally get the know every last bit of the maps and where to find whatever resource they are after.
Some like WvW the most, and spend most of their time on the borderlands and the eternal battlegrounds, either in small groups or guild zergs. They learn how to best trait and skill their classes for the situation at hand, which, depending on the kind (and size) of group and your goal, can be quite diverse. They progress their wvw experience bar and rank to gain wvw abilities that have a serious impact on their play in that game mode.
I have friends that almost exclusively pvp, because they enjoy that game mode the most, and/or would like to have access to a specific rank finisher (phoenix for rank 70+ seems to be sought-after the most right now ).
Others spend most of their time in the silverwastes to unlock the full set of luminescent armor skins on their account.
There’s roleplayers, trading post specialists, story lovers that spend their time leveling multiple alts to experience the personal (and living) story from different angles, compulsive collectors, fractal frequenters, and last but not least the jack-of-all-trades that enjoy dabbling in all of these fields depending on mood.
The one thing you will not widely find though is people focused exclusively on gear aquisition, as that is just not a big thing in this game. You have to find the part of the game that is fun to you because you like to play it, not because it gives you better gear. If you are a meticulous crafter, this may result in you focussing on crafting ascended gear, but for most people, ascended is more of a by-product of playing the content they like, just like a legendary is something that you (ideally) build resources for over a long time, instead of force-farming the resources in one go.
Check out more of the game than just zerg event trains, and find the spot that appeals to you because you enjoy playing it. Rewards will come in by themselves, but focussing exclusively on them instead of enjoyable gameplay is (unfortunately) a pretty good way to burn out on this game quickly, as that isn’t how most (if not all) content is built.
That way of earning gold is all about spreadsheets and RNG. Both of which I’m not in favor of as a play style.
Why not use them for your own good then? It’s a resource you’ve collected by playing the game, and you can spend them to get some cool skins (e.g. I crafted the mystic sword and focus for my guardian and the Song of the Numberless Pac for my ele because the skins go well with their outfits), weapon stats, or items for some of the collections you may be interested in.
Check out the wiki entry on the eldritch scroll to get an idea of what kind of non-rng recipies there are for the forge, and use your excess skill points to your advantage.
I did use some to craft some skins for myself. Vision of the Mists. Mjolnir. Anomaly. Mystic axe.
I could craft a bunch of other skins, but none of the others are anything that I particularly I want to use, which makes crafting them feel like a waste of gold if I’m just doing it to fill up my wardrobe without intent to use,
Then treat them just like badges of honor, fractal relics, or any other currency people have aquired that they don’t plan on spending because there’s nothing to have that currently is worth it for them
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It’s a thought. The problem with the wardrobe is that it’s poorly designed from a collectors point of view. It ranges from easy to get to difficult to get (extreme RNG needed) to not available in the actual game (gem store items) to impossible to get (not currently available by any method). It needs to be reworked with gem store items and black lion chest skins and achievement skins in their own categories. If the wardrobe can not be filled in 100%, it puts a bit of a damper on the desire to fill it in.
I know what you mean. Personally, I’m always irritated when checking the wardrobe on my asura-only twink account and finding most of the locked armor skins either being gemstore only (many of which I simply don’t like the looks of on my (female) asura) or racials for other races. Additional filter options like “unlocked only” or “usable only” (filtering out all other races racial armors as well as non-usable weapons) would be great, altough I’m not yet sure how that could best be incorporated into the ui that currently filters by category only.
Back to use for unused skill points: I’m still dreaming of recipies for minis, kind of like the princess miya recipe from super adventure box. Drop parts of minis on certain mobs, bosses, chests etc. throughout the world, and combine them with whatever forge currency looks suitable for exclusive in-game minis. An asura can dream, right?
That way of earning gold is all about spreadsheets and RNG. Both of which I’m not in favor of as a play style.
Why not use them for your own good then? It’s a resource you’ve collected by playing the game, and you can spend them to get some cool skins (e.g. I crafted the mystic sword and focus for my guardian and the Song of the Numberless Pac for my ele because the skins go well with their outfits), weapon stats, or items for some of the collections you may be interested in.
Check out the wiki entry on the eldritch scroll to get an idea of what kind of non-rng recipies there are for the forge, and use your excess skill points to your advantage.
I did use some to craft some skins for myself. Vision of the Mists. Mjolnir. Anomaly. Mystic axe.
I could craft a bunch of other skins, but none of the others are anything that I particularly I want to use, which makes crafting them feel like a waste of gold if I’m just doing it to fill up my wardrobe without intent to use,
Then treat them just like badges of honor, fractal relics, or any other currency people have aquired that they don’t plan on spending because there’s nothing to have that currently is worth it for them .
" A single character who’s done a fair amount of the hero challenges should be able to unlock all of the core specializations, skills, and traits."
implies they are talking about an existing charachter here. which means that they will mostly be the existing challenges
The way I read it, it also implies that you need nowhere near all hero challenges in the game to unlock everything.
disclaimer: the following is pure speculation on my part
Going from this image of the new profession reward tracks, it looks like they’re currently planning for around 16 trait unlocks in the water magic reward track (3 minor, 4 adept, 4 master, 5 grandmaster). Five core specialisations per class makes that ~80 hero points to unlock all core traits. Each class has around 6 skill categories with an average of 6 (1 heal, 4 utility, 1 elite) skills belonging to each category, with comes down to roughly 36 hero points needed for the skill category reward tracks. Adding those, we’ll end up at somewhere around 116 hero points to fully unlock all the core reward tracks (trait lines and skills).
Currently, leveling a character to 80 gives you 68 skill points plus two 1-point skills (one heal, one utility), so it would be fair to expect a level 80 character with no hero challenges to have access to 70 hero points in the new system. That leaves another 46 hero challenges required to unlock all the core traits and skills. Even if that number doubles by requiring more than one point to unlock e.g. the higher-level elite skills, we’re still a good bit below the 200+ skill challenges currently in game.
That way of earning gold is all about spreadsheets and RNG. Both of which I’m not in favor of as a play style.
Why not use them for your own good then? It’s a resource you’ve collected by playing the game, and you can spend them to get some cool skins (e.g. I crafted the mystic sword and focus for my guardian and the Song of the Numberless Pac for my ele because the skins go well with their outfits), weapon stats, or items for some of the collections you may be interested in.
Check out the wiki entry on the eldritch scroll to get an idea of what kind of non-rng recipies there are for the forge, and use your excess skill points to your advantage.
Make sure you have a resurection orb in your inventory, and slide down the outside of the big cube. Easiest is going from one of the balconies on the middle level (where the crafting stations are). Once you’re all the way down (and usually dead), you’ll be transported to the prison cell and can self-resurect with the orb or wait for other players to turn up in the cell to resurect you.
I started playing GW1 six weeks ago, and I’m honestly enjoying myself. I’ve read up a lot of info on the wiki, reddit, and build guides for myself and my heroes, and I don’t find it half as bad as you’re making it out. Sure, I die (frequently), but there’s always a different skill/build/party setup I can try, and I usually get things done with a little bit of thinking.
Thinking/planning/strategy is what most missions in GW1 require, at least more than a good part of open world in this game. In GW2, your skill is in quickly reacting to different situations and knowing your character, skills and traits well enough change your plan on the fly to deal with unexpected situations. Quick reactions are a big step on the road to success here.
GW1, on the other hand, takes things slower and is a lot more about planning and strategy and less about quick on-the-fly reactions. If you don’t get anywhere, take a step back, lock at what you’ve got available (skills, henchmen, heroes, equipment), and try to figure out what combination could help you overcome the hurdle. Check outside resources (especially the wiki) for tips if you don’t know how to proceed. It’s a lot more of a thinking game where doing your “homework” will help a lot towards enjoying yourself and beating the game.
In the end, it all comes down to if it’s the kind of game you like or not. GW1 is a lot different playstyle-wise than GW2. I currently enjoy both for being so different, each has strong points that appeal to me, but if one or the other playstyle (more action-reaction in GW2, more up-front planning and strategy in GW1) doesn’t appeal to you, then it might be easier if you just accept that the hom rewards aren’t worth it for you.
- SAB
- save/load trait and utility templates
- a wardrobe tab for transformation potions (one-time and endless, similar to the tab for finishers)
- boss-exclusive crafting recipies that allow crafting miniature pet versions of that boss
- more (many more) scavanger-hut like collections like Mawdrey and the luminescent skins
Actually I’ve run out of bloodstone dust a while back already . While I don’t play much dungeons or fractals when I’m feeling down from real life, it’s still my primary source of champ boxes. I absolutely despise world boss farming or event trains, and casually completing maps with alt after alt doesn’t give you much of that stuff. That said, I still have a few rarely-played alts with bags filled with dragonite ore, so I’ll second that idea
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After days of family gatherings and searching for old aunts in crowded zoos and looking after kids on crutches and so on, I’m feeling casual to the point where I’m running out of empyreal fragments to feed my start of gratitude with. And tired, oh so tired … I wonder if I’ll ever be awake enough again to do a proper dungeon tour goes off to wallow in self-pity
The game – especially the dungeons – lacks unique drops or weapons like most other MMOs or general RPGs have.
Have you ever considere that many of us play this game precisely because there are multiple avenues to getting pretty much any kind of loot? I’ve spent more time than I care to admit, farming the same instance or same boss day in, day out, in other MMOs because that was the only way to get specific items. In my eyes it’s one of the high points of GW2 that I can really play whatever I feel like and still make (sometimes a lot, sometimes a little) progress towards whatever item I’m currently after.
I know with the NPE when you reach certain levels they do have a information in the level up splash screens regarding certain things (i.e. combo fields) but I’ve no idea what they do as I’ve never clicked one (I already know what a combo field is so why click it?).
I think that part of the problem there is that people don’t look at the splash screen that pops up and go “Oh what’s a combo field? I’ll just click here to find out” they just go “Eh whatever, gimme loot and lemme get my next level”.
Does anyone actually know what they say?
I’ve read them all, but unfortunately, the one about combo fields isn’t very informative. I’ve been thinking about “how to teach combo fields”, but have yet to come up with a decent method myself. In a way, it’s a case of rtfm, many people these days think it should work without them reading anything, so they don’t read the level-up information either.
One thing I’d like to see is an in-game encyclopedia of those pop-ups, possibly with links to the appropriate wiki article for further information, but still this only reaches those who are actively looking for knowledge. There are people who don’t ever want to think about that kind of thing, so the only solution there is to not care about it and do your own thing, or try not to play with/near them in the first place.
I find the reddit decently responsive. In fact, if you scroll back a bit, you can find a lot of HoM info already, since questions about that come up a lot.
For exotic lvl 80 gear with berserker stats, you can (in no particular order):
- craft it yourself – this needs the appropriate crafting discipline at 400 and a range of materials
- find it as drop in the open world – admittedly the most unreliable method
- buy crafted or dropped equipment at the trading post for gold
- buy (non-salvagable) equipment in wvw for badges of honour and gold
- buy (non-salvagable) armor from the grenth temple vendor for karma
- trade with the dungeon vendors in lion’s arch for dungeon tokens from the citadel of flame, the crucible of eternity or the ruined city of arah
- play pvp to earn weapon and armor boxes from the reward tracks corresponding to the dungeons mentioned above
If you are starting out with low resources, a combination of the above is probably your best bet. For example, you could do a single dungeon reward track in pvp for a set of weapons (3 per track) and one piece of armor, then get two more pieces from wvw via badges you picked up in EotM, give your accumulated crafting materials to a friend to craft a fourth piece, and finally buy the remaining two pieces from the trading post.
Check the wiki for a more detailed list of what stat combination equipment can be aquired from what source, and plan accordingly. Good luck!
(continued)
There’s days when I want to challenge myself, and enjoy duo-in Arah on less-played classes, or trying to solo one or the other dungeon encounter, and I’m happy to have friends in this game that allow me to do things like that. Other days I get home and just want to relax, not think, not react quickly, just want to do some easy content, some chit chat with guildies, and if one of us goes down, the others res and everything’s fine. I love this game because it allows people of all playstyles to play with each other, and gives me content to play regardless of whether I feel like getting deep down into the mechanics or not.
Some days I carry, some days I get carried. That’s the way it is. Some day I get frustrated crawling through fractals with guildies, but I still do so occasionally, because I value those people for other things. I’m glad the game doesn’t try to “train” them to the point where they simply stop playing.
This game’s player base isn’t bad. It’s diverse, and for very good reasons. It’s not always the way you want it, or even the way I want it, and I think it’s a good thing, because diversity to me is alway preferable to one-way perfect.
disclaimer: rant ahead with too many characters, so split into two posts
A game should try to encourage players to master it. … it should encourage and try to train it’s players to use the resources available.
I’m very torn on this. Of course it’s useful to give the players the chance to learn and understand the game’s principles and master its mechanics. On the other side though, there’s only so far a game can go in training its players.
There’s a saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks”, and in a way, it applies here, too. “The game” can only teach those who want to learn. Many players in this game though are here not because they want to master the game’s mechanics, but rather because they want to immerse themselves in a fantasy world, and experience that world, rather than worry about its mechanics.
At 20, most people are probably very much into “optimising” their gameplay, the mechanics, and getting the “most” out of their game. But the older you get, the more real life changes you, the more your focus shifts, too. There’s jobs and families that challenge you to the fullest, and your desire to get “the most” out of a video game often takes a backseat. This is not to say that we “oldies” wouldn’t like to be able to master our games, too, and some do, but the majority tends to become realistic and not put as much emphasis at mastering our gaming as we did when we were half as old.
Personally, I’d love to be able to solo Lupi one day, but my reflexes (or possibly my latency, or most likely a combination of both) are so bad that I can’t even evade his kick 9 times out of 10, even if I see it coming every time. Maybe, if I spent every free minute practicing, I could get there one day. But that’s simply not worth it for me these days. 20 years ago, I would’ve love to do this (and did similar things in other games), but not today. Real life, in the form of family, job, and other stuff, just takes too much of my time and energy to devote enough to learn a video game to the max.
I’m already the odd one out among my guildies, many of which are close to my age or even older (some even in their 50s or early 60s). They all love the game for the world and the possibilities they have here, enjoy playing dungeons and fractals together (even if it takes close to an hour to get through one path of CoE), but want to enjoy the game without spending a long time banging their head against “hardcore” barriers that need a lot of learning and training before they get to enjoy the content locked behind it.
My friend list on the other hand is filled with people I enjoy being around because they share my interest in getting down to the mechanics of this game, mastering the dungeons and other content, improving class and character knowledge and understanding. None of these people is anywhere near my age though, in fact, a lot of them aren’t even half my age. And I do notice that compared to them, I’m a slow learner, and often not nearly as tolerant of repeated failures, because my time is too precious to me to fill it with repeated frustration.
One of my guildies, a guy in his early 60, and in retirement already, once said to me: I’ve been through school and work life, I have learned and practiced a lot of things in my life. These days, I’m through with working and practicing, I just want to enjoy myself. There’s a good many people like that playing this game, people that more or less don’t like the game to train them, and don’t like to play games that require a lot of training to enjoy them.
These people are not necessarily bad, they simply are different. They have a different focus, and are willing to invest different things into this game and its community. You won’t find them in other games, not because those games are better at teaching their playerbase, but rather because they don’t have interest in games that require them to be taught to a level they don’t enjoy. They are however very much one of the demographics ANet targets with this game, and as such, have every right participate in it without being “taught” how to master the game’s mechanics.
The game can encourage the players all it wants, there simply are a lot of people that enjoy MMOs that don’t enjoy getting to the bottom of all its mechanics. Any MMO, including this one, is a complex thing, and mastering it takes a lot of time and brain power, something not every one is willing to invest. Personally, I love this game because it allows all different kinds of people to participate, and to invest different levels of “work” in mastering it.
I just need to figure out if Server matters outside NA/ Europe. They are all full or heavy pop and it doesn’t seem to be a factor.
It matters if you want to play WvW, as you are asigned to play for your home server in that mode. Check out sites like this one to get a feel of where each server stands concerning wvw participation. Expect queues and larger groups dominating in upper tier servers, while lower tiers often give more room for roaming and have a bigger chance of immediate access to the wvw map of your choice.
Besides, if you choose an EU server, make sure to choose one with a base language you are comfortable with, because that will likely be the dominant chat language on the maps you are placed on. There are german (DE), french (FR), spanish (SP) and international (mostly english language) servers.
The closest to the captain class is probably the guardian in this game, heavy armor with abilities to buff the team in a variety of ways. While turteling isn’t exactly viable in this game (the combat system heavily relies on active defences, combat movement and dodges, stationary tanking mostly doesn’t work), a guardian has a ton of tools at hand to mitigate incoming damage (block buffs, debuffing mobs with blindness, and much more), both for themselves and the team around them.
Don’t hesitate to craft while leveling. You’ll be able to pick up a variety of crafting materials along the way and personally I found discovering new crafting levels a lot of fun in this game. You will however level fairly quickly, and at least the first (couple of) character(s) will most likely find better stuff before being able to craft on-level, since harvesting and crafting give a good amount of character experience themselves.
Welcome to Tyria! I have to admit, I sometimes miss my hobbits and the beautiful world of Middle Earth (warden and minstrel were my classes of choice, but I gave up of them when they were butchered in the class overhaul of the Helm’s Deep expansion), but to me Tyria has replaced a good many things I would’ve missed about Middle Earth if I had moved on to other games . It’s a beautiful world in its own right.
Highest level is 80, but you’ll get there fairly quickly. Rounding out your character, unlocking traits and finding the equipment stats you feel most comfortable with may take a good while longer than getting to 80.
For guilds check the Looking for forums.
Just try whatever appeals to you!
You can enjoy all parts of this game with pretty much every class. Once you get to the point of optimizing your gameplay, you’ll find that some combinations click more with you than others (e.g. I thoroughly enjoy playing the asura race, to the point where I’ve leveled several duplicate classes so that I can enjoy playing them as asura, too). Fortunately, it’s really easy in this game to build, level and outfit another character later on when you have resources from earlier characters, so there really isn’t any way you can go “wrong”.
There is a strong element of “find your own fun” in this game. You won’t find questchains that lead you through the game, but instead will be free to pick your own direction and the areas of the game you enjoy most. There’s tons to do and to discover in this game.
Don’t try to hoard things for later. You will find that it’s fairly easy to gather decent equipment whenever you need it, there’s no use in filling your bank with stuff another character might need 50 levels from now. If you can’t use it, salvage it for materials, or sell it at the trading post. There’s a special storage area in your bank where you can store a full stack of each type of crafting material this game knows, and you can even deposit materials there from anywhere in the world, and you can sell stuff at the trading post from wherever you are, too.
Above all, try everything, and see what’s fun for you!
I actually only bought GW about a month ago, after having played GW2 since shortly after launch. I enjoy it, but it’s a very different game to this one, and I play it for very different reasons. To me, it feels a bit like a throwback to the old (mostly single-player) rpgs I used to play ten or twenty years ago.
Give GW2 a chance as a “totally new” game. What often makes it difficult for experienced players to “get” this game is that it doesn’t really hand you many carrots to lead you around, but rather counts on you finding things of interest yourself. Where GW leads you from mission to mission and from outpost to outpost, GW2 just sends you into the wild to discover events, points of interest, skill challenges, jumping puzzles, mini dungeons, beautiful vistas, hidden chests, unknown shortcuts, … at your own leisure.
Pick a direction and start walking. Grab a bunch of gathering tools to pick up any resources you find. Observe or talk to npcs you come across, you never know when you’ll trigger a new event. Don’t just run off once an event is done. The npc involved may turn into a vendor offering interesting goods, or another event may follow to continue the chain and story.
Go to different areas to find equipment skins to fill out your wardrobe, and explore areas fully to gain transmutation charges to transmute the content of your wardrobe unto your equipment. Unfog maps to unlock waypoints and gain exploration achievements. Find events and locations that unlock traits that you may equip to shape your build later on in the game (level 30+). Poke your nose into dungeons (again, level 30+) to face a totally new level of challenge.
What you will find in GW2 if you have played GW will be a lot of names and history you knew back in the day. Even though I did it the other way around, I was excited to meet characters in pre-searing that I’ve known from the very first story dungeon in this game. Currently I’m looking for Oola’s lab in GW, a place I already found (hidden away) in GW2. I’m really curious what the place was like back when Oola was working in it.
GW and GW2, while sharing a common history, are fairly different gameplay wise. Once you dive in, you will see the similarities, too, but don’t expect GW2 to be just like GW. It’s built on the lore and some of the core ideas of the old game, but it’s its own game, not a clone of anything older.
As far as I understand how Masteries work:
a) There are Mastery points to be found in the Core maps
b) You level them masteries by gaining XP, instead of gaining skill points.This means that you’re able to level these Masteries while playing the core content, and then making use of them when you play in the new content.
It’s not something where you’re confined to the new maps in order to progress.
Not quite. According to the masteries article on the HoT page, you can only unlock and train HoT masteries while playing the new content:
Each Mastery track is tied to a region of Tyria—they must be unlocked with Mastery points gained in that region and can only be trained in that region. With the launch of Heart of Thorns, there will be two Mastery regions: the Heart of Maguuma, encompassing all PvE zones that are part of the Heart of Thorns expansion, and the core Guild Wars 2 world, encompassing all PvE zones currently available in the game today
Thus all the mastery point unlocks and experience for training masteries aquired in the core maps will go into masteries like the fractal ones, while you specifically need to unlock and train (gain experience) your HoT masteries in HoT maps.
Just pick a direction and start running. Every piece of the map you unfog, every waypoint and poi you pass, every skill challenge you beat, and every vista you view, all of those give experience. Harvest every crafting node you pass, jump into each event (and get out again as soon as it starts to get tedious), and you’ll find experience coming in faster than you know what to do with it. Don’t forget food, slayer potions (any you have at hand, it’s just for the experience boost), and whatever celebration/birthday/experience/kill-streak boosters you happen to have at hand, they do add up.
Just walk from Lion’s Arch to any place you find interesting and not too far above your level: World boss spawns, guild mission locations, dungeon entrances, temples in Orr … you’ll unlock valuable waypoints and gain levels on the fly. Last time I ran a level 70some to the temple of Grenth (to get some specific equipment for their upcoming wvw build), I gained three or four levels (in less than half an hour) just from map unfogging and unlocking points on the way .
I discovered new dungeons this weekend … in GW1 . First time I set foot into one of them (with my trusted team of heroes and henchmen) was kind of by mistake, but seeing as it was actually enjoyable (if somewhat longish … I had to afk in there frequently), I visited a few of them. It did however remind me of one of the strong points of GW2, namely the fact that most activities don’t take a lot of time and make it much easier for me to break off playing when real life intrudes.
Accountancy Waypoint is love, Accountancy Waypoint is life.
I have no idea how what you just said ties into this discussion since this discussion has absolutely nothing to do with Waypoints. This is why I cannot take you guys’ criticism/comments into consideration because they either make zero sense or are totally irrelevant to the main idea in this thread.
It’s the waypoint in the Interdisciplinary Accessium (aka Rata Sum center), the same one I mentioned above as being the most convenient for me. Just waypoint there if you need any of the services, and walk the few steps back to the crafting station (all of which, incidentally, are about equally away from said waypoint and services).
This is why I find it hard to argue your points, since you show no interest in even looking into the suggestions and arguments that are made in this thread. I stick with the point of my initial argument (possibly not clearly enough expressed), that to me, there now is a good balance of organically placed services that “fit” into their surrounding instead of being sprinkled to every corner of the map to make things convenient to the point where it’s no longer remotely about playing an rpg but only how to most conveniently go through a mechanical process optimized to the last second.
Take a look at the crafting stations throughout the game. They are a part of the virtual world of Tyria, and as such, each has a unique place in this world. Some of them are closer to certain services than others. Ask around, you will find that most players have their favourite crafting centers that are most convenient to them. Your preferences apparently are strongly towards time-saving layout (which btw the captain’s airship provides best if I’m not mistaken, thus making comments about aquiring an airship pass very relevant in the context of this thread).
I haven’t really played GW2 over the holidays (had friday and monday off here) beyond dailies and our weekly saturday night asura raid in WvW. Instead, I’ve been playing around in GW1 again. I finished my first campaign (factions … felt pretty quick, just four weeks into the game), and am (breakinsertedtounkittenpost) now playing the nightfall storyline and messing around with vanquishing and hardmode mission attempts (and it’s pretty messy due to the fact that I have hardly any decent hero skills unlocked so far ).
(edited by Rasimir.6239)
Actually, before the destruction of Lion’s Arch, the tailoring station was farthest away from the trading post, so I guess it’s just fair that they get the short route for a while now . Who knows what LA will look like once it’s rebuilt?
Also, what about the poor Charr and Norn, who have a considerably longer way from the crafting stations in the Black Citadel and Hoelbrak to their respective BLTP representative?
How about the people storing excess stacks of crafting materials (or worse, intermediate cooking results) in their personal guild banks? The guild bank access in LA is horrible for crafters if you compare it to BLTP and regular bank access.
See, there’s a lot of convenience you might consider when talking about the distance between crafting stations and their respective sources of ingredients. Personally, I’m fine with the way things are. I try to plan ahead with what materials I might need from the trading post and/or the personal guild bank, and I enjoy walking through the living towns whenever I need something from someplace else. I actually prefer towns outside of LA often (Rata Sum comes to mind for its convenient commerce center on the middle level) because they feel more “alive” than LA most of the time .
Disclaimer: I’ve been crafting heavily since I started this game two and a half years ago, and don’t intend to stop anytime soon. In fact, I’m currently leveling a second set of crafters to max on my alt account . Still, I prefer to craft in a “living” enviroment even if that means to walk a few steps.
But I don’t dare to go in there and check the tone of the complaints, lol, or the answers. A short glimpse made me run again and hide here.
Do you really want to be scared? Take a look at the german language general forums
.
At least I learned a new word today: SJW. Never heard that one before …
Now I am curious but I don’t know which thread and posting you are referring to. And I honestly can’t get myself to filter through them.
So could you please elaborate a bit?Because, sad as it may seem, I gave up reading german game forums about 6 weeks in when I started playing mmorpgs. Over a decade ago.
I know what you mean about german game forums … I usually keep clear of them, too, but for some reason or other I ended up becoming guild officer in my casual (german language) guild a while back and now try to force myself at least once a week to peek in there and possibly post something, to try and maybe get a few people interested in our guild . The things you do for your friends …
To be honest, I couldn’t even tell you which thread it was (or if it’s still there). I browsed through there early this morning when I got to work (around 7 o’clock) and every April fool’s thread I checked seemed to be worse than the last. I haven’t been back since …
But I don’t dare to go in there and check the tone of the complaints, lol, or the answers. A short glimpse made me run again and hide here.
Do you really want to be scared? Take a look at the german language general forums .
At least I learned a new word today: SJW. Never heard that one before …
Anyway, I haven’t had a chance to see things for myself yet (still at the office), but I’m sure my kids will love this April fool’s joke if I let them play later on (although the little one probably will complain about no SAB … she’s been waiting and patiently checking in with Moto in Rata Sum for a year and a half now sigh).
I don’t know yet if I’ll play beyond doing dailies … I’m really getting sucked into GW1 right now. Considering I only bought the game on a whim three weeks ago because I didn’t feel social and wanted a place to hide, I never expected the game to be that much fun. I just walked my ritualist from LA to Old Ascalon the other night ankitten ow exploring the early prophecies story, and there’s still my main storyline at Echovald Forest waiting for me, too .
Bump.
Bored at work and this sub-category barely gets any new updates.
So, how’s everyone reading this post, whatcha up to?
I just got home from work yay me
But I’ll have to leave again in a few minutes, to go to a counselling thingy with my husband and our 12-year-old to try and keep those two from fighting day in, day out . Wish me luck, I’m really getting tired of him and the girls screaming at each other all the time …
As for Lupi, I’ve been in Arah exactly once on thief, so no idea . I wish I had the time and energy to devote to learning how to solo that one on just one of my classes … but at least this game is still fun to play even if you can’t solo anything
.
Sorry, not in a very good mood today …
I’ve done the priory storyline on two eles (and several other classes), one of them post NPE and doing the story on-level. While I got through “The Gost Rite” without wiping on my latest ele (keep in mind though, that I had a lot of experience with both the class and that story mission by then), I still consider it to be among the most challenging, if not the most challenging personal story episode, much more difficult on squishy classes than anything the whispers or vigil story lines ever presented me with.
I’d really like to know how many of the people claiming that there’s no hard personal story missions in this game have actually played that exact mission on a squishy class while they didn’t have a lot of experience on the game’s combat mechanic yet.
That said, I still think the mission is in a good place challenge-wise, but it’s definitely among the hardest for new players still getting to know the game.
doubloons are upgrade components, not crafting materials.
Blade Shards are only used for forging, not crafting.
The Gift of Blades and some of the sigil, rune, and utility recipies would like to have a word with you about that .
Foxfire Clusters, Blade Shards and Doubloons
Geodes
Bandit Crest
Mystic Clovers, Vision Crystals, Gifts of XXXXX
+1 to all of these, but especially the clovers and vision crystals!
Whow … and here I was afraid of pugging high-level fractals because I wasn’t sure I knew enough of them to perform to other people’s expectations …
Clones – dont work
Phantasms – dont work
Turrets – dont work
Banners – dont work
Minions – work
spirit weapons – work
elementals – work
What about ranger pets?
Don’t feel bad, Winter (well, ok, a bit, that cute asura didn’t deserve to be cast aside for a stupid human ). I could never hate on you! <3
And thanks for saying something nice about my asura. Last time somebody commented on them was to ask “Why do your asura always look so grumpy and angry?”
You deleted your Asura! goes off to cry in the corner
I’ve just started playing GW1 a couple of weeks ago (having played GW2 since shortly after launch), and I find it hard to even compare the combat of both games, it’s just so totally different.
GW1 combat is a lot more “front-loaded” in that you have to research the proper skill and class combinations for the content and know how to play your rotations to maximum effect. Quick on-the-fly reactions and proper movement play a smaller role than they do in GW2 combat. More strategy, less action.
Personally, I find GW1 combat (at least from what I’ve seen of it so far) easier to get into, since planning and strategy come easier to me while my reaction time isn’t the greatest. Still, GW2 combat to me feels more fluid, and lots of fun especially when things don’t go as planned and you have to react on the fly.
Both combat systems have their strong points (often mutually exclusive), and both cater to a different kind of player. It’s just personal preference which system you enjoy more.
Been pugging, since I came back, the last couple of days, and I must admit that either pugs got to a decent level or I’ve been lucky. Friendly, skilled groups, just chit-chatting and joking all around, jeez I missed that.
Apart from that, stuck at Lupi group was in distress and it felt so good to explain them a bit about the path and help them finish it. I love how thankful and happy they are at the end, makes me love GW2 again.
Either you really were lucky or it’s just you who’s making people behave better than normal . In fact, the runs I was able to join you were among the most enjoyable I’ve had in a while (despite the fact that I haven’t been in CoE in ages and forgot half of the things I need to know about that dungeon
). I’m certainly hoping you’ll stick around for a while and I’ll get to play with you more often again
.
Sorry, locked traits, map completion and character specific unlocks along with possible professions make rerolling painful.
I have leveled a few extra mesmers and elementalists simply for variety, and found the experience not painful at all.
The crucial waypoints for dungeons, guild missions, world boss farming and material farming can be unlocked in an hour just running across the maps on a level 80 if you know where you’re going (and if you don’t, it’s probably for the best you spend the time re-exploring the world ). The pretty yellow star is not as easy to come by, but that’s a character bound achievement, and changing race effectively changes your character to somebody completely different, so I’d say it’s a fair bargain that you can’t transfer the star.
Traits can take a bit longer, but as long as you know the game and the events involved, I’d say it’s still fairly quick (as the opinion of someone who has unlocked a good amount of traits on four lvl 80 characters created past April ‘14 through gameplay alone). I understand playing for character progression is no everyone’s cup of tea, but there’s the possibility to buy the traits with skillpoints and gold farmed by older characters, too, to buypass those trait unlocks that you find too annoying.
I’m not sure what you mean by character specific unlocks, other than plain level and traits. If you already have characters at 80, you should be able to gather enough skillpoints and gold to mostly bypass all of this anyway. If it’s about crafting levels, just keep the crafter on the sideline. My own weaponsmith and huntsman (500 in both crafts) was one of the original four characters I created back when I started playing. 2+ years later, she’s still in her 50s, because I simply didn’t enjoy the race/class combination (norn engineer). I’ve since leveled a norn of another class and an engineer of another race to 80 and thoroughly enjoy both. My crafter will probably stay glued to the crafting station in Hoelbrack for the rest of my game time, but I see no reason to remove her since she’s perfectly able to do her job (crafting weapons form my gang) fine the way she is.
Is there anything specific you want that you feel you need more gold than you get by just playing? Personally, I find that a healthy mix of gameplay (I like to level alts, play dungeons&fractals, wvw with friends, play unranked pvp) gives me more than enough gold on the side, without having to farm anything.
Just keep playing, and eventually the gold will pile up. Unless you need to have everything now, or better yet yesterday, buying everything from the tp is a sure way to go broke, but why do such a thing when most stuff can be gotten in-game through simply playing with just a little bit of patience?
Disclaimer: I have plenty of characters and achievement points, but no legendary weapon, because the precursor is the one thing that hasn’t shown up from regular play in 5k+ hours in this game, but other than a fancy skin it wouldn’t improve my enjoyment of the game anyway, so I don’t worry about it.
I remember ESO during beta to have some of the WORST PVE experience in any MMORPG to date, phasing everywhere to prevent players from playing together. If they haven’t fixed that yet and made the game full dynamic then I would never call it good for those who love PVE. Maybe a more specific subset of PVE, dungeons and raid lovers sure, but not PVE as a whole, because in ESO it was pure garbage.
They actually fixed that pretty well a while ago. I play ESO occasionally with my husband (he’s big into that game), and the phasing really works fine these days.
That said, personally I’ll stick with GW2 as my main MMO since it suits my needs so much more. I vastly prefer account-based progression to character-based progression these days. ESO is starting to move towards account-based, too, but the sheer amount of vertical progression required to get anywhere no longer suits me.
Both are good games by now, but cater to very different kinds of players. To each their own.