Guild Wars 2

Seeing as I’ve got a few days off work coming up, I’ve decided to set myself a new goal: reach Fractal reward level 50 before the end of the year. It might become an interesting experiment: I have rarely pugged fractals before, and never beyond level 9. I only have two characters with enough ar for lvl 40-50, mesmer and guardian, and only have decent experience with one of them (the mesmer). My experience in and knowledge of high-level fractals is ok-ish, but certainly far from perfect.

I’m taking bets on whether or not I’ll make that goal (considering that I did a total of three fractal runs across two accounts last month, one each on reward level 49, 29 and 9, it certainly isn’t going to be done automatically ), and of course invitations to be carried through some 49/50 fractals (never did a 50 before) are always welcome, too .

A question to those of you who know the pug-scene on EU servers: Is there any chance of pugging high-level fractals in the mornings? Starting next week, my most-uninterrupted playtimes will probably be when my kids are off to school .

Vynas.2063:

Just curious as to the state of the game, and if it is still active enough to justify coming back.

It certainly is not a dead wasteland. Thanks to the megaserver technology you will find plenty of other people even on maps that aren’t very popular, and due to the way trait aquisitions now work for new characters, you will easily find others to team up with even on mid-level group events (while the trait aquisition rework is widely critisized, it did a good job in bringing people to do those events regularly).

How long the game will keep you interested will depend a lot on the type of gamer you are. From my experience, people who get their fun primarily from the rewards they win in-game tend to be more easily bored and/or frustrated by perceived grind than those who get most of their fun from the acivity they play and see rewards only as a nice extra. Fortunately, once you’ve bought the game, you can just jump in and see for yourself anytime you want. You can even check out the chapters of the living story that you missed by teaming up with somebody who has them unlocked, before deciding whether to unlock them yourself or not.

Gilosean.3805:

New characters will need to pay the ridiculous cost or complete bugged content to unlock them, plus assigning trait points.

The “bugged content” refers to unlocks for less than a hand full out of 65 unlockable traits. Most traits are perfectly fine to get, and I’m sure the devs are working on fixing the bugged events that are related to trait unlocks. In general, unlocking traits has become a part of character progression (just like gaining levels), with the added shortcut that you can buy the unlocks with gold and skill points if you don’t care to do whatever is required for the unlock.

Check the trait guide on the wiki for a list of activities required to unlock traits (there are lists available sorted by trait lines and level ranges), as well as the profession trait tables to find the complete trait list for your profession.

Have you ever been to the Silverwastes? I think the mobs of Mordrem would like a word with your last point.

Taku.6352:

Aah this is why I love reading the forums.

passes some popcorn to Taku

Personally, I guess I’m just too old for the kind of language on display here … good thing I’ve never encountered anything like it while pugging.

Kuldebar.1897:

The tasks to unlock many of the Traits fall nowhere in the “regular” game areas and often are completely out of sync (10-20 levels higher) with the level requirement for the specific Trait. Additionally, many Trait Unlocks require grouping for Champions or Dungeons.

So, players are usually left with the obvious choice of buying the Traits, assuming they know which ones they want, from the Vendor.

Living Story season 2 is what in other MMOs would be referred to as “endgame content”. By definition, endgame content in an MMO is content for players that have finished their character progression. In most MMOs this boils down to reaching the max level, but in GW2, there is much more to character progression than reaching max level (personally, I’d say reaching lvl 80 is somewhere in the middle stages of character progression in this game).

Along with unlocking access/waypoints all over the game world and gathering decent (exotic) weapons, armour and trinkets that complement your prefered playstyle (part of the build you are going for), gaining the traits is a part of the character progression pre end-game. As such, claiming the content is over-tuned simply because it requires fully progressed characters instead of “characters in progress” is kind of putting the cart before the horse.

Three of my max-level characters that I currently play have been created at different times after the April feature patch, thus requiring trait unlocks. On all of them, I had gotten about 20 out of 65 available trait unlocks organically during leveling, by exploring maps and happening upon (group) events needed for trait unlocks. I have since done a mix of keeping on exploring the world (none of them are near 100% yet, but then only 5 of my 12 80s have reached that so far) and going for specific traits I found I wanted or content I knew would give me traits rather painlessly (e.g. EotM-towers or story dungeons via lfg in my case).

Currently, out of those three characters, the guardian probably has the most traits (around 50), but all three have a complete build each for dungeon play and wvw, and enough other traits to get a good mix of builds for pretty much anything I’ve encountered so far. Doing living story content and Silverwastes/Dry Top map events is no more of a problem on those three characters than on my older ones who didn’t have to unlock the traits. I fail to see what reason anybody should have to buy traits with gold and skill points beyond wanting to have a shortcut to not deal with character progression at all.

I’m not sure what “regular” game areas are for you, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of any trait unlocks that are not located in regular game areas. Sure, not all events happen all the time, and mini dungeon chests don’t sit waiting for you next to the waypoint, but what is this game for you, if not exploring areas, finding out-of-the-way chests and doing events and event chains? I find it hard to understand why people want to cut out a large part of character progression, yet claim that content obviously aiming at fully progressed characters needs to be accessible to half-way-theres instead.

I think we trolled some poor warriors on lfg last night. Do I have to feel bad now?

We were in a 4-man guild group, and put up an lfg to get a 5th. For some reason, the guildie that put up the lfg asked for experienced zerker and to ping gear, which the person that joined did without question. We then proceeded to switch characters to an inexperienced guardian and thief, to make things easier, and the rest tried to make the first run (TA) and for some reason failed miserably (I was still re-logging and only followed group chat). Suddenly, the warrior was gone …

I suspect that the 2nd warrior that came in afterwards (again dutyfully linking their equipment … good thing I didn’t have to link my guard’s stuff ) was a bit irritated at the chaotic group he had landed in, too, especially since we were quite chatty, but at least they stayed with the group, and the instance went fairly painlessly. Still, I have no idea why the guildie put those requirements in, but very much suspect the people answering were expecting a different kind of group.

Your level upon changing zones also depends a lot on what you did in the previous zones. Did you complete the Caledon Forest to 100%? Did you do a lot of events, or skip most of them (or were unlucky to always pass through the areas at times when events weren’t active)?

Due to dynamic events (which give good experience while leveling), the leveling curve may be totally different for different characters. If you are struggeling with mobs and events, backtrace to the areas you just left, and seek out events there. Unlike quest-based MMOs, this game puts part of the “burden” of accumulating experience on yourself. By actively seeking and taking part in events, you can gather a lot of experience, while just running through the area ticking off map exploration points will probably leave you short.

Lastly, don’t forget about extra sources of experience, like harvesting resource nodes (also good for some coin if you sell the resources at the trading post) or resurrecting dead npc. Those can also have a significant impact on the level you’ll reach before moving on to the next area. If you thoroughly explore the place and take part in events, you’ll easily be able to jump into the 2nd zone at lvl 17 or 18.

tigirius.9014:

they label those of us who spent alot of time trying to improve the game by requesting things that would have increased the fun factor, trolls. That’s the problem I’m seeing. We have a dev team who struggles with connecting with the playerbase that’s left, and we have their white knights attacking those of us who really just want the finally get the game we paid for.

I’m sorry to say this, but the attitude you are displaying in this paragraph is exactly the attitude that has led me to disregard your posts before (and I have read a lot of them over the last few months). Making suggestions is great, and voicing them on the forums is certainly a good way to get them considered. In the end, if your ideas and suggestions are not implemented, this does not mean that the devs have trouble connecting with the playerbase. It just means the playerbase is large and diverse, and the devs connect with a part of it that does not necessarily share all your views and ideas.

Like I mentioned, I have read several of your posts, suggestions and comments, to the point where you have become one of the posters who’s name give me a pretty good idea of what kind of post I’m expecting to read (don’t take this personal, I simply have a good memory for names). Your suggestion may improve the game to you, and increase your fun factor, but they certainly don’t go in a direction I would want the game to go. I’m pretty happy the game is going in a different direction than the one you have been suggesting in the past, because the direction it is going is increasing my personal fun factor much more than your suggestions ever would.

If you could accept that your ideas and suggestions may not always be the be-all-end-all and stop accusing anyone with a different preference to being a “white knight”, I’m sure you’d get a much more favourable reaction to your posts.

I’m not sure what you mean about “hitting the spyglass repeatedly”, but by hovering over the spyglass icon next to a locked trait you will get an explanation of the activity necessary for unlocking that trait as well as the map that activity is located in. If you are looking to unlock specific traits, make a list of their requirements, or simply make a list of any unlocks possible in a certain map, then “work” on that map to get those traits.

A good start would be map completion of Gendarran Fields, Lornar’s Pass and the Fields of Ruin, areas between level 25 and 40, which each give a trait on full exploration as well as hosting several events/bosses/hidden chests that give other traits. Depending on your prefered playstyle, the traits in the WvW maps (Eternal Battlegrounds and Edge of the Mists) may be easy to get, too.

If you don’t care to write down your own list, checking the trait guide or the profession traits lists on the GW2 wiki is always an option of course.

Personally, I’d rather see ANet concentrate on adding to the existing world with more content that invites anybody in the area to join in, rather than spend their time re-arranging existing maps to allow people to hide away in 5-player-instances (with all the consequences of incompatible playstyles we already see in lfg these days) to do busywork in the form of mindlessly killing monster after monster.

Even if they changed next to nothing about these instanced maps aside from mob-respawn and event-respawn, it would still take considerable work to do instanced versions of all maps. As a result, we would get a “challenge” that is in no way greater than it is to go through these maps on-level today (and I’m sorry to say this, but if you understand the class and game mechanics, on-level or even below-level play of open world maps isn’t challenging at all).

Implementing real challenges (preferably in a way that reaches a large part of the player base, without resulting in mindless busywork) takes a lot of development time, regardless of whether it’s on a new or already build map. I’d rather see this development time coupled with new world design on new (or added-to) maps than see it wasted on creating challenge to fit existing maps that were never designed with that kind of challenge in mind.

I used to be a die-hard healer (and part-time tank) player in other MMOs, and came to this game with similar “personal restrictions” like you have stated. I never enjoyed playing dps, especially not melee (ok, I did play my hobbit warden tank in LotRO as melee dps sometimes, but at that time the class was so awfully overpowered that you could solo-clean 6-man endgame instances without thinking twice, so that doesn’t really count ).

GW2 has taught me to enjoy melee damage-oriented playstyles, but mostly because this game expects more from you than just to go through your damage rotation again and again to put out the highest dps while others take care of the rest of the fight. Every class is expected to provide support and look after their own defence as thoroughly as possible.

After getting 7 classes to 80 (all but necromancer), most of them even more than once, I find that mesmer, guardian and elementalist are the classes I enjoy to play most, because they all have an interesting toolbox of skills and utilities to support the group as well as themselves. In (near-)meta dungeon gaming, the elementalist doesn’t use the whole range of support combinations though, but outside of that, it’s definitely the class that allows for the most fun with combining builds and utilities.
thinks back fondly to a casual evening with guildies in WvW and what fun can be had with combo fields and blast finishers generated by fall damage traits

Thanks for the explanation, Taku! The damage on the husk is mostly done by the exploding golems and doesn’t depend on my character’s stats, right? So I could change to my WvW armor (rabid with full traveler’s runes) to get a base 25% speed increase in case the swiftness runs out?

Kaldrys.1978:

Only in GW2 would a weapon set be judged on its ability to tag mobs over its actual contribution to a fight.

Quoted for truth.

Personally, I use greatsword fairly often on guardian and warrior, rarely on my mesmer and ranger. I mostly prefer onehand swords for those two classes in PvE. I’m not really into zerg events though, so tagging stuff mostly isn’t what my gameplay is about, and going through endgame areas solo I feel more comfortable with my swords on mesmer and sword/bow combo on ranger.

CoE p2: the evolved husk. What is so special about mesmers that they’re expected to solo that fight? And what do you have to look out for if you do? I have to admit, I have never even tried to solo it, and most of the time when I’m in there with guildies the husk is down even bevor I know what’s going on .

Gilosean.3805:

I wish ANet wouldn’t keep shoving LS/PS in our faces with the UI – I really like the map completion guide, but I can’t figure out how to have just that and not the achievement tracker and LS tracker.

LS tracker and map completion guide are tied in with each other, and you can choose what to display in the user interface section of the options page. Unfortunately, whe wiki page is not up to date, but if you check your options in-game, you will find a setting for “content direction guide” (or something similar) right above the settings for the in-game clock I think. You can set it to map completion mode if you don’t want the personal/living story to show up, or turn it off completely.

The achievement tracker can’t be turned off (as far as I know), but you can use a work-around to minimize it. Just choose a single achievement (preferably one that you are in no danger of completing any time soon), and put that on your watch list (the eye symbol in the achievement panel). That way, the achievement tracker will only show what’s on your watch list, which in this case is just a single achievement, which minimizes the room on the UI taken over by the tracker.

Exo.2965:

farm farm farm MORE farm for the God of Farm. Dont you think that you should have more time to play and not to grind ? Its like you can spent some time with your friends but “NO! Silver Wastes and chrest farm avaits!” …

How about you simply don’t farm? Drop into Silverwastes every now and then when it’s fun for you, but don’t worry about it if you’ve got better alternatives? It’ll be a couple of weeks instead of a couple of hours to get the skins this way, but you’ll avoid all the farming and spending time on content you don’t want to do at that moment.

I don’t know about you, but if I have the chance of aquiring some skins I’d like in a couple of weeks on the side, or in a couple of days by grinding content I don’t enjoy to play for that long at a time, then the choice is easy. Especially since Silverwastes played in moderation is actually a lot of fun.

Casmurro.9046:

GW2 lacks longevity, progression, it just doesnt hold the players after certain amount of time played, while regular mmos can give thousands of hours of replayability.

It simply depends on what you are looking for in an MMO. Personally, I have always enjoyed a good mix of world exploration and instanced content. I love doing dungeons and raids (in other MMOs I’ve played), especially the more complex ones, but I hate doing them again and again and again just to farm the shinies. I love creating new characters and exploring the game world from their point of view, but I hate that in most MMOs you are pretty much forced to follow where the quest lines take you, with not a lot of alternatives to keep things different or change the pace.

This is where GW2 shines for me. If I feel like dungeon running, I have a multitude of options, from pugging easy paths via lfg, to doing stuff like Arah or highlevel fractals with friends. If I don’t feel like dungeon running, I can choose one of my multitude of alternate characters and go out to explore the world, without the constraints of questlines and leveling paths dictating the area I can explore at the time. And to me, this gives as much replayability as dungeons (and a lot more than world boss farming … I hate world bosses ).

Just because you do not enjoy a large part of the replayable content this game offers, and probably prefer to measure the “worth” of your time spend in the amount of shinies aquired rather than enjoyment of the content you do, does not mean GW2 is less of an MMO than other games. A lot of us enjoy it exactly because to us the worth of an MMO is in the fun of the content we play rather than the shinies we aquire through it, and GW2 is the perfect MMO to keep me busy this way (and already has done so for roughly 5k hours over the last 2+ years).

Siett.9856:

i am sick of walking to the same place over and over and over again and god forbid pvp level a toon instead of exploring good luck getting to a dungeon in a reasonable amount of time.

Half of the dungeons (AC, CM, TA, SE) all you have to do is step out of a city to get the “enter dungeon” pop-up as soon as one of your group has opened the dungeon. One more (HotW) can be accessed from the far end of a starter zone (just step from Wayfarer’s into Frostgorge).

Of the remaining three, two (CoE and CoF) can be a bit tricky to unlock, as you have to cross a higher level zone or two to get there, but even then getting a waypoint in the zone isn’t all that big of an adventure. I just recently unlocked access to Mount Maelstrom on a lvl 20 elementalist by sneaking south from Hoelbrak, and I got there surprisingly quickly and painlessly. Only Arah is a bit complicated to unlock on your own if you are under-leveled (my ele has yet to make it past the Lone Post waypoint), but once you are roughly on-level, even that is quickly done if unlocking waypoints is your only goal.

Now of course I don’t know what a “reasonable amount of time” means to you, but spending less than half an hour once to unlock a dungeon’s waypoint forever does sound perfectly reasonable to me.

As for mounts, I’d like a sedan chair carried by skritt, please. And a scruffy-type personal golem for my golemancer warrior . I’d rather keep waypoint unlocks character bound though, just running all over the place opening up waypoints adds a quick and easy chunck of experience to levelling characters.

Oxidia.8103:

Did anyone ever got giant eye drop from… well anything?

I actually got one from Mawdrey 2 a while ago, and a couple more from Heavy Mouldy Bags.

So what you really want is not replayable content, but repeatable content with a better reward ratio than we currently have?

ErazorZ.5209:

Only thing this game needs is replayable content.

How do you define “replayable content”? And what makes this content you think the game needs different from the replayable content we already have?

While this may sound like a rethorical question at first, think about it. Literally, replayable content is content you can do again and again and again. Looking at the wealth of dynamic events, jumping puzzles, mini dungeons and other stuff in this game, we already have a ton more replayable content than most classic MMOs, where content comes in the variety of 1-time-through questlines, daily repeatable (usually endgame) busywork-quest (bounties and similar), and group-/raid-sized instances that often are gated by very specific gear and group composition requirements and daily or even weekly instance locks on completion.

Compared to that, we have dynamic event chains in many (if not all) maps across Tyria, that have a significant impact on the part of the world they are in, by opening and closing waypoints, merchants, or simple accessibility of map areas. Temple chains in Orr, centaur wars in Harathi Hinterland, conquering the brand in the Iron Marches, gaining favor of the Zephyrites in Dry Top, or saving quaggans and hyleks in the Timberline Falls, there are event chains/meta events all over the place that are involved, offer (different levels of) story, challenge, and rewards, and have the big advantage of being replayable whenever you feel like it, unlike most quest chains in more traditional MMOs.

Sprinkle in some jumping puzzles or mini dungeons you come across, seek out crafting resources for personal use or selling on the TP, just go off and explore the maps if you need a change of pace to renew your interest. Just yesterday, I was map-completing Timberline Falls one a character (the 6th to world completion, and probably #10+ to complete that map) and stumbled into the set of grawl/risen caves in the western mountain range of that map. Despite the fact that I’ve been in that map countless times and thought I knew every corner of it, I never realized how extensive that cave network is and how the different entrances connect. No matter how well I think I know Tyria, hardly a week goes by when I won’t find something new (to me).

When you’re not in the mood for exploration or dynamic events, there’s dungeons to play. They become a lot more fun if you actually play them rather than grind them. Again, they are very replayable, and the more you mix up your experience, the more replay value you will get from them. Try going in there with different groups and strategies, meta fast clears one day, taking somebody new to dungeons through the next day. Have you ever done sightseeing tours of the dungeon paths and explored the out-of-the-way corners? There is so much content there, just waiting to be explored and replayed in a variety of different ways.

Then there’s WvW and sPvP. Lots of replayable content right there at your fingertips. Depending on what server you play on (for WvW) or what kind of matches you prefer (hotjoin vs. queue in sPvP) you’ll get a ton of different experiences. Mix things up for yourself, and you have all the replayable content you want.

stops rambling and looks around confused
Sorry, what was the point of my post again? Ah, yes: This game is actually filled with tons of replayable content. The main problem is that it’s your own decision whether (or how) you utilize that content. Do only one small facet of the game’s content (e.g. currently farming the Silverwastes all day long) and you will quickly get bored of it, even to the point of burn out. Mix things up, and try (again) things you haven’t done (in a while), and you will be surprised at the wealth of replayable content we already have. Of course, more replayable content is always welcome, but currently I fail to see what specific kind of content could fill a niche in this game that is not already filled.

Which brings me back to my initial question(s):
How do you define “replayable content”? And what makes this content you think the game needs different from the replayable content we already have?

Tere.4759:

The character I was leveling was level 15 before I left the game. He is now level 18. He would have had traits already. Traits do make a difference when leveling. I disagree with you. I don’t feel a sense of progression.

So you are basing your sense of progression and your whole view of the NPE on playing a character for 3(!) levels??? Out of 80?

What “sense of progression” did you get when leveling 15→18 in the old system? You didn’t get any extra trait points in that level range either.

ErazorZ.5209:

All im asking is SOMETHING to do past this point wich isnt farming or repeating the same dungeons for the 100th time. or play the story AGAIN.

I think all of us could agree on that, the problem is, what kind of content can you honestly imagine that fits these criteria? A challenging boss sounds great on paper, but how exactly do you define challenge? Does it force you to pay attention to certain mechanics, like e.g. the final Hidden Arcana boss fight? Does it force you to have good reflexes and know his ability tells and how to avoid/profit from them, like Lupicus? Does it involve a decent degree of rng to be on your side, with overlapping abilities that can appear in easier and harder combinations?

What challenge level is the right one for this game? Liadri level? I know a ton of people that never got close to beating her, as well as lots of people that claim she was easy once you knew her attacks and had enough practice to get the right reflexes working at the right times. What part of the community is this content supposed to keep busy, and for how long?

And lastly, how do you design the rewards for this kind of content to encourage people to spend their time with it, but not farm it? From my own experience in different MMOs, I have yet to come across content that was really played for a long time for the content itself. Either people replay it to farm the rewards, or they deem the rewards not worth the effort and go play other things once they’ve conquered whatever one-time rewards (in our case achievements) the content offers.

You can already see the divide in the (certainly not overly challenging) new living story content. Check out all the threads on the forums that claim the content is not worth playing, by people that find it too challenging to bother as well as by people that find it too easy. There are tons of people claiming the last episode does not have replayability, because they don’t enjoy the content (too easy, too hard, too boring, too zerg-heavy, too skill-reliant, too grindy, too much work for comparable loot, whatever). Some would obviously be more happy with “press 1 in zerg” type of content. Others would prefer more (solo or group) puzzles. Again others want more story and lore. Others want classic dungeons/raids. Yet others want “real MMO, not Pac-Man”.

Like I said above, I’m all for something new and challenging to play, I just haven’t really figured out how to design such content (be it a single boss, a minigame or whatever) to really fit my criteria. Maybe that would be the better opening for a thread, try to brainstorm how veteran content really looks like (mechanic-wise, skill-level-wise, reward-wise) instead of the nebulous “we need veteran content” where each person posting has a different idea of what kind of content we are talking about.

What race/class are you leveling? How many different characters have you tried? Did you map-explore (search out vistas, skill points and similar once they are available) or just do hearts? Did you check out the different race starting areas?

There are a lot of different impressions of the NPE, and lots of posts about it on these forums. Personally, I did create a new alt (Norn elementalist) after the september feature patch specifically to try the early leveling experience for myself, and I enjoyed the new leveling and the feeling of progression so much that I took her all the way to 80 (and I already had 11 other chars at 80 before her).

I can’t quite figure out what to you is or used to be “the wonder of the game for leveling alts”, and what exactly you are missing from the old experience. You did mention the story coming in blocks rather than single episodes, which I personally enjoyed a lot more, because I can now do the whole story arch for my level range in a block, where before I either had to fill in lots of other content between story steps (sometimes making it hard to even remember what the current story arch is about), or do a large chunk of the story over-level if I wanted to do each arc in a block.

Swish.2463:

Someone who sets aside a specific amount of time to Play or someone who will play when they feel up to it and have some time.

If you fall into the first category you are MORE LIKELY to spend money beyond the original purchase as you are showing Investment into the game.

If its the second, you are LESS LIKELY to spend money beyond original purchase, you show little to no investment and are unlikely to care about extra trinkets or “keeping up” with other players.

Yes there are deviations from this when you find the hardcore players that get off on earning everything by only grinding. But for every one of these there is many more adult players more inclined to spend a small amount of money to reap the same rewards. Those players may have less time and play casually but the majority of them Will fall into the Hardcore or Core sub category of players.

Interesting theory. How do you know that the majority of them will be in the “hardcore category” as you call it?

And what exactly would they spend serious amounts of real money on to “keep up” with other players? What is there to keep up with anyway? I fail to see the part of the game where you need to invest money and/or excessive time to keep up, since the equipment needed to do all of this game’s content is easily achievable with a fairly relaxed and “casual” playstyle anyway.

By the way, I know a lot of “Casual Ted”’s that do in fact spend a good amount of real-world money on this game for stuff like the bobblehead laboratory, store-exclusive skins or makeover kits to play dress-up with their characters. Stuff to enjoy themselves, not something to “keep up” with anybody. I have yet to meet somebody who tells me they spent money to make challenging content any easier for them.

The “hardcore” players I know seem to buy the same frivoulus fluff from the story, only they don’t buy their gems with real money but with in-game gold instead, since they usually have a lot more of it than Casual Ted.

There is an active thread right here on the first page of this forum discussing the subject in detail that you may want to read for further info.

GrimmR.3541:

Yes Rasimir, you are right.
But as I wrote above, is no one forcing any meta to new people. Nor is anyone forcing them to go melee or to skip trashmobs.

I know, but that wasn’t my point. My point was: If the posts are starting to get to you and intrude on your fun, think twice about what arguments you get yourself into. It’s only worth to post/argue/give advice/whatever if it doesn’t ruin your own mood. There’s people that will never “see the light”, that live with a totally different view of the world in general (and the game in particular) than yours. Go ahead and try to show them your way, but be wary when the cost of trying to show them your truth is getting too high for you.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Well, my standpoint on that matter is that if someone comes to the forums with a flawed opinion and noone is there to show him that he’s wrong, then he will think he’s right. He will keep talking about that and more and more people will start to believe him until ANet thinks he represents a majority.

See above. As long as you’re ok with it showing people what you believe to be the right way is good. It’s when the “oposition” is starting to intrude on your fun in the game that you need to carefully decide which battle to fight and which to leave to others.

GrimmR.3541:

And I have to say that I am about to give up hope on this community!

I’m sorry to break this to you, but people are different, have different tastes and abilities, different priorities and different life experiences. There’s no such thing as “this community”, but just a collection of many different people with different views of reality. As such, some of them work well with your likes and dislikes, and some clash violently.

Now, did I tell you something new? I hope not .

Anyway, no matter where you post or talk, you won’t be able to make everyone around you “see the light” and agree that your point of view is the right one. Some people won’t appreciate the dungeon meta because it takes them out of their comfort zone and requires an amount of adaptation and practice that they are not willing (or even interested) in investing, because it defeats their purpose of playing this game. Some people will actively try to discredit/remove the dungeon meta because they feel (not necessarily based in logic) their own playstyle impacted in a way they don’t enjoy. Some people just try to get a rise out of provocing others.

The current dungeon meta is a playstyle that is enjoyable for many players of GW2, but certainly not for all. I play in two guilds, one more dungeon focussed with a tendency towards melee and even straight meta builds and strategies, the other more casual with a strong tendency to play dungeons ranged, with minimal to no skipping, and a good amount of “support” builds. In one guild, the average player is probably 20 years younger than me, in the other a lot of people are my age or even 10+ years older than me.

Personally, I enjoy both playstyles with the right people, and detest both with people I don’t mesh with. I’ve had my run-ins (in-game, I don’t enjoy that kind of controversy on the forums) with “casuals” that found me going melee on berserker builds irritating, as well as with “elitists” that were upset by me not knowing every dungeon encounter in this game by heart (I came to meta dungeoning rather late in my GW2 career), or by my sub-par reflexes (that’s what age does to you, although mine weren’t even that great to begin with).

There are days when the amount of whining about different playstyles on the forums gets to me. That’s when I try to leave the forums be and concentrate on actually playing, because there really is nothing to gain by getting into an argument with someone who is determined that their point of view is the one and only truth, except for a concussion from running head-first into a brick wall again and again. It will only make you feel worse, but (usually) no amount of reasoning will make the other person more tolerant.

If you find the amount of posts of that kind on the forums getting to you, take a forum break, or be more selective with what you read. The world will not stop turning because you take a semi-break from forum wars. There’s about as much chance to stop people from posting suggestions that seem unreasonable to you and directly impact your playstyle as there is a chance for you to rid the public park next door of weeds forever.

Have fun in-game, and let those you consider forum trolls hang high and dry. They will go away quickest if they don’t have anyone to argue with.

I’ve played this game with people as young as 12, and as old as 60+. Myself, I’m well into the upper half of that age span.

I’d say the game is targeted at explorer and socialiser type players, who prefer to play more casually and don’t need a carrot to chase all the time. Graphics are colourful and detailed, and look like a pretty painting at times.

simplesimon.2084:

Play at home and on the forum while at work on break.

Same for me.

Log in and play whatever I feel like. I hate nothing more than daily schedules .

Try to only go into Dry Top from the full hour to 40 minutes past the hour until you are comfortably aquainted with the area, since the sandstorm will be active from :40 to the next full hour every hour.

The whole map is a bit maze-like, and there are a few steps in the story where you have some (easy) jumping with crystals to do, but overall you’ll find that there’s not nearly as many places to go wrong as it seems at first. The map is highly 3-dimensional, which does take some getting used to, but once you know your way around it actually is a very fun and interesting environment.

What part of the story are you stuck on? Which waypoints in Dry Top do you have unlocked? Maybe someone here on the forum can give you a couple of tips to get on with the story, it certainly is worth it. Or, if you are on an EU server, whisper me in-game and I’ll gladly act as a “tour guide” to get you aquainted with the major paths through Dry Top.

Disclaimer: I am an adult with fulltime job and family, too, but still I enjoy Dry Top as a unique and very well-done area.

The cryptobotanist does explicitely state what kind of part he is looking for (fangs or tendoms), and only offers 25 crests for that. If you want to trade in tendoms while he’s looking for fangs or the other way around, just hang on to your tendoms/fangs and check back later.

Some of the crafted profession back items look really nice, if you are looking for some kind of traditional back item (backpack). There’s (ascended) quivers and books you can craft at the mystic forge, some complicated mechanisms from former living story episodes that will make you the envy of every engineer around, and a good variety of plush quaggans and charr if you are into toys .

I’ve seen quite a few of the crafter back items around lately, but “nice” is in the eye of the beholder. Personally I’d rather stay with my flowers and plushies, they look much more comfortable to carry around than all the crates and boxes the crafters have with them.

The combat system of this game is not as easy and shallow as it looks on first glance. Sure, there is a lot of stuff you can do by just randomly mashing keys on your keyboard. I see my 8-year-old playing like that whenever she’s allowed to play, just randomly hit her 1-0 keys and hope for the best. It makes me cringe inside, but it’s enough to get her little asura ranger through the starter areas.

There is on the other hand a lot more things you can do in this game’s combat if you know your class, know how to use the boons and conditions your weapon and utility skills offer, know how to best combine your traits and gear choices, know how to position yourself, when to move, and how to adjust your skills, traits, weapons and gear stats to the content you’re trying to do.

To know all that takes some thinking and a ton of practice. Eventually you will get to a point where you realize that pretty much all (solo) challenges this game offers are doable with any class. Some combinations are easier than others, but if you fully utilize your options, theres no solo content in this game that you can’t conquer.

The living story achievements (assuming you are talking about those) actually are very accessible. I’m by far not the best nor the most experienced player, but even I’ve been getting those done in a decent time frame. Sometimes I had to try different strategies, sometimes I had to think out of the box, but everything was (is) doable with a moderate amount of experience and some thinking.

If you want to play this game and find it too hard, don’t hesitate to ask for hints and tips on specific classes, areas, and/or achievements, either in-game, in your guild or in map chat, or right here on the forums. Check the wiki and all the other web pages out there for explanations if you can’t figure out how a fight or enemy works. There’s always people around willing to help you with hints and tips. The only thing nobody can help you with is experience, you have to go into the game and get that yourself. One thing is certain though: You won’t get experience in playing GW2 by playing another game.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Context : LS story kittens up with mesmer illusions and we’re basicly loosing our core mechanic present twice in every weapon set we use and several traits, minor and major, related to illusions. I get that answer :

the fact that no class but who is controlling the mesmer class and for me the best class for the achievements , beats melee , long Range , is invisible , has clones to confuse enemies , stability etc ,

I feel violated.

Where did you get that from? Sounds like somebody really didn’t understand what you were talking about.

That said, I actually asked a friend to go with me through Hidden Arcana last night, because mesmer was my 6th character through (3 per account, ele&war solo, ranger/guardian/thief escorting friends) and I was looking for someone to carry me through the facet of light. In the end, it turned into the 6th (and 7th, because my friend disconnected on the final fight and I was kicked because he had started the instance) time I mostly soloed the facet of light because the person I was in party with managed to die in the field early into the fight sigh.

Actually, it wasn’t even as bad as I had anticipated … guardian in full soldier’s with wvw-wannabe-tank-traits was definitely worse damage-wise (totally missed changing builds before that fight and since you can’t change equipment due to Area-DoT I had to go through with it).

deSade.9437:

It’s like this in every mmo. It’s mostly based on damage, because no boss goes down by throwing flowers at it (listen up, hippies). Then, why haven’t they got it yet?

I remember a few months ago, when I started reading the dungeon forum and fell to the influence of all you big bad elitists, shelving my trusted mesmer greatsword and daring to take a couple of ugly one-hand swords into dungeons and fractals instead. To brainwashed little me, it made total sense, and I could no longer see the enlightened truth the rest of my fractal team saw, with their tank warrior and healing guardian.

Eventually our (not so) invincible tank warrior called me out for not using the greatsword (while fighting the rabbit/shaman/ettin group in the harpy fractal) and demanded that I change back instead of dying to the bosses occasionally (yes, I was still pretty bad at surviving back then, I was practicing after all). I tried to talk to my (former) buddy on the group (the healing guardian) about it after that run, but the discussion didn’t really go anywhere, until he said: “you know, I just think every combat team in every game should bring a tank and a healer”.

I should’ve seen the big, flashy warning lights right then and there. No idea how I could’ve been so blind …

steals some of Laula’s cake

Hurry up and join, or there might be no cake left .

Skritt > Mesmer

xDudisx.5914:

My idea was not to create a leaderboard. Just to let people keep track of how good/bad a pug dungeon was. Obviously I could use a software outside of the game or even a cellphone to time the runs, but would be a in-game life quality improvement to have it implemented on gw2.

There’s an option to turn on a timestamp on chat messages which is usually enough for me in those circumstances. Since it’s only down to minutes, not seconds, it’s not super exact, but works well enough measuring pug dungeons for me. Usually there’s not much chat going on anyway, so I have the timestamp of me saying “hi” after joining the group to compare against current time when finishing.

fruitycutey.9057:

Where are the items I have to work for and show what I’ve accomplished in this game?

I’m sorry to break it to you, but the existence of any items like that, in any game out there, are a myth. No item can show how “accomplished” you are, only how much time you’ve had to throw at the game, and/or how lucky you were getting to play with decently skilled people and getting the rng gods to drop the good loot for them.

I’ve seen it in other games where people big-mouthed their way into raid groups to waste hours upon hours until they got their hands on whatever “unique” loot they were after to try and lord it over others that they’re somehow “better”, when really their skill was sub-par and they only got the item through a mix of time spent, knowing the right (skilled) people and sheer luck. On the other hand, people who really were skilful at playing the game but didn’t have (or want to) waste as much time would often end up without the associated prestige items.

There are players around that are exceptionally skilled, figure out challenges on their own, and beat content a large portion of the player base couldn’t dream of beating thanks to personal skill, but there is no challenge those players can beat that others couldn’t beat by reading up on strategies, getting in with the right groups and simply throwing an insane amout of time at the content.

Of course you can construct solo challenges like Liadri that are still moderately difficult even if you can read up on all the strategies and builds others have come up with, but beating a solo challenge doesn’t exactly say much about your skills at playing a multiplayer game, or does it? There’s more to being a good group player than being able to beat single player challenges. On the other hand, the nature of group challenges implies that it’s always possible for less skilled people to beat them with the help of exceptionally skilled ones, so any reward that you gain there isn’t really an indicator of personal accomplishements.

I get that you’ve got a good amount of time to spend on this game (judging from the account-bound rewards you have mentioned in this thread that you’ve already collected) and would like to get even more visual rewards that would make you a special snowflake, but let’s face it: designing special, unique rewards that are only attainable for a very few people that have an above-average amount of time to spend isn’t in ANet’s best interest. They want content that, while challenging and somewhat time consuming, is still achievable by a considerable part of the player base, not just those few that devour content at a speed that no developer could ever keep up with.

It’s only my guess, but I don’t expect any real “special snowflake” rewards to appear, simply because it isn’t worth it to construct something that needs real skill and can’t be aquired by simply throwing a ton of time at it.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Kysin.6349:

That MF boost affects bandit chests, but yeah… I hate when enemies don’t even give a chance at loot.

Is this true? Usually MF only affects loot drops.

The buff (+30% MF per stack, max 5 stacks if I recall correctly) you get for completing events in the Silverwastes explicitly states that it works on bandit chests opened while the buff is active.

Actually if the lvl 40 and lvl 20 characters are your only ones, my primary advice would be to forget about gold and leveling for now and just go ahead and play. There is a multitude of things to explore and experience in this game, and you will actually rob yourself of a considerable part of the fun in this game if you go and “power-level” in EotM or whatever other train-of-the-week is suggested.

Levels come naturally if you just go out and explore the world. In fact, my most recent characters to 80 (I’ve got 11 or 12 there by now) all were leveled simply by map exploration, uncovering waypoints, points of interest, hearts, etc., doing whatever events I stumbled upon in the process, gathering resources I came across, and none of the characters was beyond 35% world exploration by the time they hit 80.

You will also get a good start on hoarding gold and karma this way, especially if you gather all the resources you come across and sell them on the trading post, since lower level ores, logs etc. often sell for as much if not more coin than high level ones, since all are needed in endlevel crafting.

I wouldn’t really worry about farming gold all that much (if at all) until you are comfortably at level 80, have unlocked all the traits you are interested in (another point pro leveling by exploration, since you’ll get a variety of traits unlocked on the way), and have a good idea of what part(s) of the game you would like to keep playing. Most areas of play will give you plenty of gold and/or other currencies to get all the equipment and consumables you need to enjoy playing, its mostly fluff and nice-to-haves (like specific skins) that may cost more money than you can comfortably come up with.

Try staff or scepter/focus ele, both are viable in many kinds of content, possibly more so than dagger/dagger (which works best for solo exploration). Dagger/focus might also be an alternative, although it does play closer to the enemy than staff or scepter.

That said, all the classes in gw2 have their individual charm, and I’ve found most of them play quite different than what I expected them to (with a background of many years of all kinds of rpg games). If you really want to shine, you should get used to switching weapon sets and utility skills depending on the content you do (and learn intelligently switching your atunements on ele, too).

I find myself switching weapons and skills regularly on my eles (I have them at lvll 80/80/78/23), often even from one encounter to the next. There’s just so much variety in gameplay with ele, it really is worth it to dive into the class mechanics and learn all the weapons.

As for playability of the game, it entirely depends on what you enjoy. There is a ton of stuff to do, but not everything appeals to every player. If you prefer the traditional “questing and dungeon grinding” gameplay, things may get a bit thin inbetween releases (depending on how much time you spend in game), but there’s always pvp, wvw, crafting and resource gathering, world exploration, achievements and collections, event chains and world boss events and a ton of other stuff to do. It really is up to you whether there’s too little, too much or just the right amount of stuff to do in this game.

In a spontaneous crafting session a few days ago, I made a complete set of Zojja’s ascended heavy armour and gave it to my guardian, who I haven’t really played in dungeons yet. I guess its high time to change that …

The problem is that I can’t bring myself to craft her a matching ascended set of weapons (sword, focus, greatsword is what she mainly uses right now), since I already have a Zojja’s version of those three (my only three ascended weapons) and would much rather use the resources to craft something with different skins to fill up my wardrobe (well knowing that I’ll most likely nevery use those skins on any of my characters anyway ).

Question: is it worth it to craft a set of Soros’ weapons (assassin stats), give those to my mesmer, and transfer the Zojja’s to the guardian? Or would you advise me to keep the exotics I currently use on the guardian and use the crafting resources to craft ascended weapons for my ranger (longbow, axe, possibly dagger) and ele (dagger, staff, scepter to share with the mesmer) instead?

Play the game. Levels come easily in pretty much any content.

Most greens (of all levels) have been around 5-6s on the TP ever since they introduced essences of luck from salvaging.

With players that are not all that comfortable/experienced to survive full glass cannon (berserker/assassin gear and traits geared toward offense), you can actually clear most content fairly easily and moderately quickly, provided the whole team chooses strategies adjusted to their builds. I’ve seen runs with “support” builds (as in clerics/soldiers/whatever defensive equipment) and adequate strategies go quite a bit quicker than the same paths with inexperienced players trying to use full damage gear and strategies.

The different builds are indeed balanced, provided your team composition and strategies are adjusted to fit the builds involved. You won’t be able to just rush Subject Alpha for example with the same “burn him down quickly”-strategy used by experienced full-dps-parties and beat him down with a support-focused party just like that. It needs different strategies, but if you find the right strategy, it works just as well (and almost as fast) as the full-dps approach.

runeblade.7514:

Rasimir.6239:

runeblade.7514:

laokoko.7403:

runeblade.7514:

The level 32 Heart quest in Fields of Ruin is the most frustrating of all.

No ogre spawns there at all. Only a few ogre racks spawns with a long respawn timer plus it takes a long time to complete it.

Just pick up the char metal. All you need to do is stand in 1 place and pick up charr metal which respawn every 5*0000* seconds and it’s done in 100 seconds. years

fixed.

Nope. The heart in question actually has an incredibly short respawn rate for charr metal. Just run the smallest circle around the southern platform, and metal will respawn before you’re even half-way around. Just standing next to a pile and picking it up actually is a quick (if somewhat boring) way to get this one done.

That said, I personally am always happy when I find the event going on in that area, since that will give me plenty of ogres to fight instead of collecting metal, or better yet, the area taken over by the ogres, which, admittedly doesn’t happen all that often these days, since there’s always people around that try to do the meta event.

Sounds like you were lucky enough to get ogre respawns.

On a few characters, yes, but there were a fair number (probably between 10 and 15 of my characters have done that heart so far) where I had to do that heart the “hard” way, without a single ogre in sight, too. That metal respawns crazy fast, it’s much less of a problem to finish that heart than several others around (one heart in north-western Harathi comes to mind, where you have pretty much lost if you happen to come after the seraph take over but still a good while before the centaurs attack again ).