Guild Wars 2

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.

cheshirefox.7026:

my idea isn’t to replace the daily system or even change it, it is for another similar system in addition to

Its laurels all over again. A specific currency only available through specific, daily gated content (daily quests in this case), that you need to aquire to be able to be trade for exclusive rewards.

Don’t we have enough daily gated currency already?

Like I said, daily quests sounds good to me, that’s a kind of content that I could see myself enjoy, but please no exclusive rewards. At most I could see adding an extra daily “complete a daily quest”, or maybe two or three of them, so you could do daily quests instead of the dailies we have now to gain your daily laurel, but that’s as far as I’d go with this kind of thing. I like a variety of content, but I don’t like to see even more rewards tied to just one kind of content exclusively.

Adventures in pug-land, some days later …

Sorry for not keeping up with this. I haven’t been feeling well for some days, and only played dungeons occasionally. On the plus-side, I did finish gathering CoF tokens for a whole armor set on both accounts. My ranger is already wearing her new outfit, while the ele is still stuck leveling (in the mid-70s, so probably not much longer). I’ll probably do a few more runs (and/or run some CoE/Arah) in the next few days to get appropriate weapons for the girls (especially since my dungeon skin collections are far from complete ).

I did a mix of pugs and guild/friends runs of CoF (mostly just p1+2) over the last few days, with nothing really exciting happening. A few of the more memorable situations:

• CoF p2 with a group from lfg (advertised as plain and simple “p2”). Worked ok until the lava field. Two people head straight to the field when the previous event ends, so the rest ports to the entrance to wait. After a while, one more ports back, the other one eventually wonders why nobody’s coming … turns out one of them has never been in the path before, and the other one at least wasn’t aware of doing the field solo instead of as group. Did turn out ok though.

• same group at the eternal flame goes pretty chaotic again. I’m not that much help myself, trying to quickly explain the event to the person who hasn’t done the path before, and getting stuck between keyboard-mispress and uneven terrain, getting my poor mesmer killed. Somebody else starts to rant on party chat about how nobody knows how to run p2 these days anymore … I get into a small argument with that person regarding the fact that one of the others already said it’s his first time in the instance. Apparently you’re not allowed into intances in GW2 unless you’ve researched them, watched a dozend or more youtube videos and have memorized all the intircacies of a path before first setting a foot in one of them. Made me a lot more annoyed than the people who were simply new at that path (even though I’d have appreciated it if they had mentioned being new before we were half-way through ).

• another p2 over the weekend, this time with my casual guildies and one experienced friend. Actually went pretty well (except for an incident at the flaming bombs when the two “zerker elitists” managed to get themselves killed by some flame turrets and the three casuals just couldn’t reach the last bomb in time ) up until the Magg defence at the last gate. AoE damage wasn’t sufficient, so the number of flame legion grew constantly, and we went down one by one, until the last player standing got the last assassin killed from downstate, before being defeated. That left Magg with a group of random flame legion mobs when the timer was around 90%. We spent the rest of the time cheering on Magg while he kept working regardless of the mobs hitting on him. He actually managed to fully set the charge with roughly 20% life to spare .

• there were a few more pugs that went mostly uneventful, with a few people here and there annoying me (mostly warriors who seemed to do next to no damage and messed up any attempt to los one mob or another), but I’ve quickly managed to forget about them .

How far in have you actually played? Looking at the level rewards , you gain your 2nd weapon skill by the end of the tutorial, 3rd at lvl 4, death shroud at lvl 5 (which you almost can’t avoid reaching in a few minutes if you do anything but stand in place), and the final two weapon skills by lvl 7 and 10.

From my NPE experience, getting to lvl 10 took a lot less than an hour, even though I only casually went out into the first area, doing a couple of events I stumbled upon and spending half the time chatting with friends rather than “seriously” playing (and I didn’t even use any kind of consumables or boosters on that character, an elementalist).

To me, lvl 1-10 seem to be nothing more than an extended tutorial, quick and painless for experienced players, but really helpful for new people. Certainly nothing to make a fuss about. And if you absolutely can’t stand an hour of beginner’s leveling, and have an account not old enough for scrolls that take you to lvl 20 instantly (like the ones you get for 5k achievement points or a character’s first birthday), take one of your characters to pvp, you gain level-up tomes quickly in any reward track.

There was a post by Gaile about a month ago confirming that the SAB will be back in the future, even though she wouldn’t (and probably couldn’t) give a timeframe.

According to Colin Johanson, Guild Wars 2 Game Director, Super Adventure Box will be back in the future. We don’t have a timeframe for the return of the SAB, but we will be bringing back this popular content.

I know you would like more details, more info, a date, etc., but that’s not available right now. I hope the above comment reassures you, though, because at the core, the important answer is that yes, SAB will be back in the future.

Personally I don’t expect it to be back this year, but hopefully it won’t be too long into next year to see the SAB open again. I’m having serious SAB withdrawl (and so does my 8-year-old, who still goes to Rata Sum all the time to check if the box hasn’t mysteriously opened again ).

dlonie.6547:

Rasimir.6239:

Didn’t you post this thread here already a couple of months ago?

Yeah, always search the forum before posting…

Oh wait. Forgot where I was for a moment.

No need really to use a search function. The way the OP presented the suggestion just sounded familiar to me, so I quickly looked through their post history and found the old thread without problem. If even a random forum member like me remembers seeing this post before, I doubt the OP forgot they tried this already …

Didn’t you post this thread here already a couple of months ago? I doubt metrics have become magically more meaningful since then.

Other than that, deSade already said all I wanted to say and more. As long as the dps meter doesn’t take into account how much group dps was due to the ranger’s frost spirit or the vulnerability he and his pet put on the boss, or how much damage the warrior put out because he wasn’t downed thanks to well-timed aegis of the guard or blind of the thief, it’s not worth it.

Depends on the groups. In many pugs, or with people who don’t know how to consistently chain their skills for max damage, bosses may actually go down half as fast or less than you’re used to with an experienced group, and stacking in the corner just leaves less margin for error (people evading out of stack etc.) in that case. See the pillar/corner as ensurance against less-perfect group members .

phys.7689:

People have opened 10k-27k trick or treat bags, and not gonna the rare drops.

Everyone keeps quoting the people that have opened high numbers of bags without mini, but nobody quotes the people that have opened less than a stack or two and got the mini …

What I’d really be interested in is the amount of bags opened total across all servers, and the amount of minis found total compared to that. Unfortunately, only ANet has those numbers, and I doubt they’d ever release them. It’s the only real indication if the chance works out the way ANet envisioned it, no amount of anecdotal evidence on the forums can come close to that.

Kartel.2561:

But I do still stand by my position that grinding static instances is an inferior form of content that necessarily gets stale, and I wouldn’t want that to impede the development of more dynamic and meaningful things.

There’s one assumption in your text that I can’t accept: You imply that the only way to repeatedly play dungeons (and future raids derived from a dungeon-like instanced content) is to grind the instances. You exclude the people who actually play the dungeons again and again because they enjoy that type of gameplay, instanced group challenges that need coordination between the group members (regardless if it’s 5 players, or 10 or possibly 15 or more in the future) to get to the end.

Personally, I play a ton of dungeons with friends/guildies simply because I enjoy the kind of content much more than zerging world bosses or farming event trains. To me, the later is pure grind, while dungeons are actually something to enjoy myself with friends, even if we’ve done them often. There’s always new character combinations to try, new people to show around, or sometimes simply the experience of cruising through a dungeon with a group that works well together and makes everything seem like a breeze, even though you know that with less experience (either of the content or the people you are playing with) the same run could still be a nightmare.

I know that there are a lot of people around who don’t share my enjoyment of dungeon/instance play, but there’s no reason for me to go around calling the content they enjoy (like press-1-1-1-1 world boss zergs) inferior, just because it quickly feels like a painfully boring grind to me. Your post would have a lot more impact (at least on me) if you would refrain from showing such a clear bias against playstyles other people enjoy.

Kartel.2561:

I argue that GW2 does have a “lack of meaningful content”, But going the generic tired instanced themepark route like so many clones already do – is not the best way to fix that. Empower players with more ways to create and BE content, and you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck.

Sounds good to me, but do you have any specific suggestions what this kind of new content would look like? What kind of activity can you think of that is directly influenced by players the way you describe it and fits into this game, without breaking it apart at the seams?

Other games have for example tried player-created missions/instances, but those can be a balancing nightmare when one player’s desire for tools to customize their experience clashes with another player’s desire to maximize loot at all costs. Some players like to immerse themselves in the game world, and seek out hidden stories and out-of-the-way locations. Others prefer the teamwork-puzzle variety of working together to achieving a goal (in different kinds of ways). What kinds of updates/activities/events/whatever do you suggest to give them all something they consider “meaningful content”?

Your post sounds all well and nice on first glance, but I fail to find any really substantial suggestions to work with when comming up with what “meaningful content” really is. Instead I see a thinly-veiled bias against certain types of content that won’t help this game evolve at all.

Laulajatar.4253:

Finally! Im so happy

Thanks to everyone that dragged me, uhm, I mean, accompanied me in the last two months and taught me how to die a horribliy, yeah, I mean, fight him.

And thanks to my guildie that let me inherit this instance, because I’m too kittening lazy to get one myself.

throws confetti
Congratulations, Laula!

One day, in the far future, I’m hoping to be able to post a similar picture .

There are more timed jps in this game. Skipping stones in Southsun Cove comes to mind, as well as a few others that have timed elements (although sometimes with different challenges than just “race to finish”).

Personally I think just slapping a time limit on existing jps won’t work well in many cases. Several of them require fighting random spawns, which doesn’t mesh well with time limit. I surely would enjoy more different kinds of jps, including time-limited ones (even though I suck at those ), but I’d rather have a few that are designed to have a clear, unique challenge (like Griffonrook Run which has a different kind of timed challenge), than a generic “hardmode” thrown at every jp regardless of the mechanics designed into that jp.

I also don’t like the idea of advertising the start of a jp by placing a unique npc there. Most of the JPs are hidden and a kind of reward for exploration by their existance alone, advertising them would be to much like handholding in my opinion. Hide some kind of hidden trigger near the start to activate an extra challenge/reward in the jp (which is already done in the above mentioned Griffonrook Run … just do the jp for the achievement, or do it while carrying the bomb for the extra chest reward at the end) and I’m sold, but again, I don’t think it would work well if something like this would be generically slapped onto each of the existing jps.

There have been numerous discussions about the Crown Pavilion and other seasonal content on this forum already, and it looks like ANet has a clear stance on activating those every now and then, but not keep them in-game permanently. SAB tribulation mode is another challenge that comes to mind, even though it takes a whole different set of skills to get through that one. In the end it’s all solo challenges though, and the direction of the game for permanent content seems to go towards group challenges, not solo challenges.

By the way, the difference between gear tiers in this game is not nearly as large as you seem to assume. Most people that facerolled Liadri and her friends did so because they simply are really good at this game, and probably would’ve done almost as well in all greens. Different gear tiers don’t make up for lack of skill here, unlike a lot of similar games.

Mesmer, ranger, ele and guardian … with the added goal of adding an engi and possibly a warrior soon, too .

Did I mention that I have a severe case of altoholism?

Bellizare.5816:

With megaservers it’s a little hard to tell how many people have left or play a little less frequently (like me).

I have been getting the low pop move to another server message with increasing regularity though.

I get that low pop message all the time, and mostly it’s really easy to explain. I get it in Wayfarer Foothilla after the shaman event is done, I get it in Caledon Forest after the Jungle Wurm, in Blazeridge after the Shatterer, in Southsun after Karka Queen, and so on … I guess you can see where this leads . If you are on the world boss train, you can just wait until everyone leaves to get the buff for switching from a low-pop server before going to the next map, although you do risk not getting onto the same map as the rest of your train that way. If you are not on the world boss train, enjoy the extra buff every time the train leaves.

Back on topic: No, you are not right. At least I am neither hating on ANet nor thinking about leaving. I’m having fun in-game, and I have the sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one .

edit: oh, and I’m not farming for a legendary, nor do I have one yet … there’s more than enough other stuff in game to keep me busy.

SundayTrash.9562:

What, u want more escort, def, guard, protect dynamic event. The game can’t keep on cathering to casual player. Hardcore player would get bored and leave.

But if the game starts catering to hardcores instead, the casuals would feel left out and leave. Now which group leaving do you think would impact the game more?

Personally, I wouldn’t mind raids (as in: instanced or non-instanced content/events specifically tailored to coordinated groups of 10+ players) in this game. I have always enjoyed that kind of content in other games, even if I didn’t enjoy grinding those instances to death and potentially still missing out on the rewards.

If such a thing ever happens in GW2 though, I hope it’ll be in a way that does allow on-the-fly organisation (like Tequatl and Tripple Wurm that require coordination but allow people to get that going on a map of randoms rather than requiring before-hand organisation in guilds and such), and that the rewards will never be anything that makes people stronger, but just alternative/cosmetic variations to rewards available in-game elsewhere.

I’ve come to this game because it allows me to play whatever I find fun and gear up to my best abilities anyway. I don’t want to see any content where you need to play only one specific type or else your build/character will always be kitten due to missing out on certain equipment.

Devata.6589:

It’s just mindlessly grinding gold. There might be worse mindless grinds in this game but in the end it’s not more as that.

Had put in a scavenger hunt to earn a skin maybe even only being able to select one and it would be account bound giving you next year a change for a second skin.

Or had put in the Dungeon from first year and have it as a rare drop. That would all have been more fun.

I’m sorry, but I don’t quite get this yet. You get a not-so-rare item from ToT bags, the candy wrapper, that you can hand in for a chance at one of a small number of rare skins. More candy wrappers -> more chances. People that only pick up ToT bags casually probably have a smaller chance than those who farm bags or gold to buy up bags on the TP, or those who actually feel like buying candy from the gem store. The more time, gold and/or gems you invest, the greater your chances, but it’s still a chance.

If you changed this to a (rare) chance as a dungeon drop, people would be forced to run the dungeon for their chance. This would tilt the chances in favor of those who enjoy and/or are willing to grind dungeons, leaving out those who just aren’t into that kind of content. This would likely lower the amount of “competition” for those skins, as not everyone runs dungeons and they wouldn’t be able to buy their chances with gold on the TP or earn them through a pvp reward track, like they do now. It would probably increase your chances, since you seem to be interested in dungeons, but at the expense of a lot of people who do not care for them.

A scavenger hunt might be a valid alternative, if not for the fact that ANet obviously tried to keep the supply of new 2012 skins limited. A scavenger hunt potentially gives a chance to aquire the skin to every account in game, thus moving the skins from rare (and to some people prestigeous) to ordinary, which clearly is not what ANet intended.

So you either want the skins devalued by making it available to everyone, or the chances to get them skewed in your favor by tying them to a much less inclusive activity (dungeons) than they are tied to now (ToT bags that can be aquired through a vast variety of activities). Why not just look for the most fun (to you) way to aquire ToT bags instead and leave other people to use other avenues to get theirs?

It’s a holiday for everyone, with some rare loot that every playstyle has a chance of winning, why do you think either cutting a lot of people’s chances by restricting chances to a certain playstyle or else devaluing the rareness of the skins is the better alternative?

Adventures in pug-land, interlude:

No new updates yet. RL has unfortunately kept me busy to the point where I couldn’t bring up the energy to pug anything at night. I totally avoided CoF on Wednesday, and only did one full run with guildies last night (which went pretty flawless ). I still need two runs on one account, and five or six on the other though to complete the armor sets, so there will surely be an update soon .

Lots of things have changed. Check the release page and updates page at the wiki for details.

There have been two major feature packs this year. The first one came in April . Major changes were the introduction of an account-wide skin and dye wardrobe, which included a remodel of the transmutation system, the megaserver system that replaced server-specific maps and overflows with dynamically allocating players of a whole server region to copies of the map that are no longer server specific (including a change in the schedule of boss events to reflect the map changes), as well as a total rework of the way characters earn traits.

The second feature patch in September remodeled the leveling process and personal story, as well as unlocking all guild features region-wide instead of server-wide, adding miniatures and finishers to the account wardrobe, special collection achievements, changes to WvW and crafting and more.

Living story season 1 ended in March, and season 2 started with the Gates of Maguma episode in Juli, including a new story journal to track personal and living story episodes, and a new lvl 80 map to the west of Brisban.

Depending on when you last logged in, you may even have missed the destruction of Lion’s Arch towards the end of LS season 1. It’s slowly being rebuilt, but don’t be surprised that it looks a lot different right now than it used to.

My daily in-game routine: log in on whatever character catches my fancy (I currently have 11 at 80 and a few more leveling), do whatever activity I feel like at the moment (leveling, map exploration, wvw, solo-queue, personal story, dungeons, holiday games, crafting, resource collecting, or whatever else is fun just then), switch to different characters/activities when I feel like it, and generally have fun.

I’ve got more than enough routine in my everyday life between family and job, I don’t need any of that in a game.

Let me see if I got this right: You farmed ambient rats turned candy corn elementals in the halloween story instance until DR hit, then switched to dungeon explorables in the hope that DR would disappear right the second you left the rats alone?

Yamsandjams.3267:

I’ve had more precursors drop than I’ve had eyes drop. If that doesn’t say something, I don’t know what does.

What exactly do you think it’s supposed to say? I’ve had infinitely more giant eyes (about 10 or so) drop than precursors (exactly 0) over the course of about two years. It’s all random.

Vayne.8563:

Olvendred.3027:

What about some sort of tag that tells you how long ago the player logged in? Not specifically, of course, but past certain thresholds (3 months, 6 months, a year). They can still post, but you’d know that they don’t actually play.

Eg.

Olvendred.3027
(Last in-game more than 6 months ago)

A tag would at least let us know whether someone who says they stopped playing has actually stopped playing. It’s funny to think a percentage of people simply lie about that.

But what does it really matter? Seriously, the only reason I could see that somebody would want to know another person’s last log-in (which of itself doesn’t tell us anything about that person’s last gameplay experience … they may as well just have logged in to reset the timestamp) would be to discredit that person’s opinion by claiming they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Sure, there are subjects that are hard to give substantial opinions on unless you have experienced them first-hand (like the NPE, which I was very torn about at first, but have found to be very enjoyable once I tried it, but then I’ve always enjoyed leveling new characters and the system has only improved that experience for me ). A last-login-timestamp (no matter if exact or approximate) doesn’t tell you anything about whether that other person who did log in recently has actually experienced what they’re talking about either.

To me, a “last login”, no matter the form, says no more or less that a person’s level, achievement points counter or whatever. I know there are people around who claim that all of these give you a good clue as to the other person’s experience, but I’ve seen too many people in-game with vastly different numbers and experience levels to try to draw conclusions from these numbers. Last login doesn’t look any different in that respect (and as such, wouldn’t make a good metric to distinguish active from inactive players for forum posting priviliges, which A-Net seems to confirm above).

I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. People have been complaining about temporary content and how they want everything available again and again, but whenever a holiday event returns (and they were announced as periodically returning content from the start), people complain that they want something different because they’ve seen it before?

Laulajatar.4253:

You were lucky We wiped 2 times in CoF 1 yesterday. Once to the slave driver. Didn’t even know this was possible.

You’ve obviously never been in a dungeon with my casual guild . Try to get on earlier tonight so we can run CoF together (and CM, and HotW, and …)! I’m not sure I’m in the mood for pugs today .

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Get there before Magg finds the 1st magmacite.

Thanks for the quick answer, Miku! So you basically have to hurry across the magma field (without an extinguisher) while Magg is still debating the hour-long extraction in that basement-like corner between the fire orbs? Is it feasible to do so on Mesmer? I’d like to be prepared in case I get into another group where nobody dares to solo.

I could’ve sworn those have been there since the start of rebuilding. I know I’ve used them countless times in the last few weeks if I just wanted bank and TP access, since they are more conveniently located to each other and the waypoint than any of the other three hubs.

The prices have been fluctuating roughly between 80 gems/10 gold and 60 gems/10 gold during the last several weeks, sometimes even going below 60 gems a month or two ago when desireable gem store updates came along (I think I saw it go down to 54 gems/10 gold at the time the katana gs skin was released).

The prices in your screenshot seem to indicate that it’s gone down to around 48/10 gold at the moment, which is a bit less, but considering the new gem store content and the fact that the new interface “forces” many players to buy more gems at once than they would’ve done with the old system, I guess it’s still possible to be a natural reaction. I’ve seen smaller gem store releases push the exchange rate by 33%, which is almost exactly the change from last weekend (around 64 gems/10 gold) to today.

Summary: No, it was considerably more expensive to buy 800 gems during the last couple of weeks, but yes, there has been a rise in gold cost for gems over the last couple of days (although within normal limits of what’s happened before).

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Lets-talk-about-the-new-Gem-conversion-Merged/first

Apparently there’s been a problem with the instance that needs to be fixed on the technical side. Usually they get stuff like that fixed in a day or two, so you should be able to finish your story within the next few days.

Adventures in pug-land, day 2:

Got home late, tried to duo CM p3 with a guildie, but eventually lost the instance to lag-related disconnects, so we gave up in that one. Instead I dragged him to pug CoF with me on his new-to-80 guardian

Advertise the group on lfg as “p1+2”. Group fills quickly, warrior starts to ping his banner despite the fact that he’s the only warrior in the group . We get to the accolyte part and people start going down again one after the other. I didn’t really pay attention to what happened, as I was busy enough keeping my mesmer alive who has like 3/4 of the flame legion on her tail. People start bickering about “how can class xyz even down in this encounter”, but eventually get a grip on themselves and we go on to finish the run. Below-average but ok run I guess.

Despite advertising as “p1+2”, people drop out wordlessly after the end of the path. Advertise for “p2” and get grouped with 3 warriors and 1 ele (I think … guildie had to leave after p1, so I was on my own again). One of the warriors doesn’t show up in the instance, so we kick him after a few minutes (already a good way into the instance). Another warrior actually volunteers to solo the lava field, and the instance goes on pretty uneventful. Stacks don’t always work since people don’t stack tight enough to los the bosses, but nothing really bad happens. Needs two rounds to get the flame down, nothing out of the ordinary.

Switch accounts, mesmer again (exotic zerker this time), and guildie is back, so we try for another “p2”. Group seems mostly experienced, flame goes down without going invulnerable again, all in all one of the nicer groups I’ve had.

Since it was already late and the guildie I was with had done p1, we decided to leave CoF then and round up the evening with a CoE p1 instead. Another guildie joins (on ele), and we get two warriors from lfg. One is clearly experienced with high damage and good survivability, the other one … not so. He almost messed up the console defence part by activating it without care for who else was activating/not activating. In the end we did 1/1/3, because he wouldn’t break the channel off when we had to interrupt the “4 at once” try, but I guess that’s something you have to expect when pugging.

All in all, I find I’ve started comparing pugs to much higher standards than I did when I last pugged regularly a few months ago. Friends and guildies seem to have spoiled me with smooth runs lately .

Moderately unrelated ramblings:

Would anyone care to explain to me what you have to look out for when soloing the lava field in CoF p2? Is it just “get to the other side quickly so Magg teleports after you before fighting mobs”, or do you actually have to baby-sit Magg to the other side?

Oh, and I went through my “old” forum posts (I think the oldest one is from april 2014 ) yesterday looking for a specific one, and realized what a totally clueless casual I was even just four or five months ago. I’ve been turned from a nice and innocent casual into a filthy elitist, and I blame it solely on the crowd here on the dungeon forums. Keep up the good work . One of my casual guildies was bragging on TS last night how he’d gained more than 30 gold in-game in just the last month … hard to believe I was in the same place just a few months ago.

Hey Gaile,

Thanks for trying to bring reason into this chaos.

• You may be surprised to know this (I know I was) but very few people bought gems at smaller denominations than the first one offered in the new system. That’s not to say they never did, nor that there wouldn’t be the desire to do so. But overall, the current options were selected based on player purchases in the past.

Thinking back, I know I rarely bought less gems in one go, but I mostly did try to buy the specific amount of gems I needed/thought useful at the time, which often were more or less than 400/800/1200. Currently I’ve got 795 gems on one account, 115 on the other, after purchasing some stuff on sale that I hadn’t calculated into my previous gem conversions. I was considering getting a new character slot soonish, but to top of the 5 gems I’m short, the new system would make me “waste” gold on 395 extra gems that would then be sitting in my account wallet with nothing that I feel worth buying (at the moment) in that price range.

Gaile Gray.6029:

• The team is going to listen to your feedback and, if and when it’s practical and desirable, they can look towards adjusting the new system to better meet your needs.

So please keep your thoughts coming on the new system. Feel free to make suggestions but please, keeping them constructive would be very much appreciated.

I wasn’t really happy with the old conversion, because it would only let me input coin, but I’d have to play around to figure out the right amount of coin to get the number of gems I wanted. In that way the new system of choosing the amount of gems to buy (rather than gold to spend) is preferable. What I would wish to see (especially considering the thoughts I’ve outlined above) is an additional option to free-form input the number of gems I want to buy. Let me exchange gold for 705 gems, so I’ve got enough for my new character slot and the new outfit, or 505 if I decide to go for the krytan armor skins instead. Don’t make me feel I need to “waste” my gold on gems I can’t currently use just to get the gems I want.

The same goes for the gem-to-gold exchange, really (even though I never use that ): allow people to put in the exact amount of gems they want to convert, to give those left with uneven gem amounts a chance to spend it all instead of being left with “useless” gems that they have no means to convert down.

Adventures in pug-land, day 1:

With my two NPE alts rapidly aproaching level cap (ranger on this account actually reached 80 a couple of days ago, ele on the other account is in her 70s), I decided to get both of them zerker equip from CoF, since I’m still missing the related skins in my wardrobes. Since my stash of CoF tokens has been deminished by previous alts, it looks like some farming is required.

As I don’t want to overextend the good will of friends and guildies to run the same dungeon twice each day just for me, I fired up lfg yesterday to look for pugs for CoF p1+2. I haven’t pugged in a while, but didn’t remember CoF pugs being very painful, so it shouldn’t be all that bad.

First try with the new ranger (lvl 80, full dps build with all relevant traits, but only rare gear) in a group simply advertising as “p1”. The first couple of encounters went not overly fast but ok. We actually lose one person on the “bridge of doom”, something I hadn’t seen before . Accolytes has people running around like headless chickens and we make it, although barely (4 dead, my poor little ranger included). The flaming boulders part goes without a hitch (surprisingly, especially since we don’t have a mesmer), but the burning domes are a mess. The warrior keeps running into other people’s domes instead of staying in his, and complains when we reset (to allow the dead to revive) how he’s almost cleaned out the enemies and that they would stop respawning if we would just stop stepping into the domes facepalm. We get the path done eventually …

Still, I’m optimistic and fire up lfg again to find a group of four advertising a simple “p2”. In goes my little ranger, to find people on the final boss, killing accolytes left, right and center in no apparent order. Still, this can’t take ages, right? I run to the event (can’t port because people are in combat all the time) and try my best to get the accolytes down as soon as one goes. Good thing I’m using the longbow/sword+x build on the ranger, allows me to take down several accolytes in short order and maximize the damage uptime on the flame. By the time the last accolyte goes down and I run to the flame with my sword, the first one is usually up again, so lower bow dps trumps no sword dps in this case, right? In the end, I get my tokens 8 minutes after entering the instance, so it’s not that bad, but I really don’t want to think about how long the rest of that group has been in there.

A few hours later I try the same thing again on the other account, full ascended mesmer this time. I find a simple “p2”, language specific, and join. The instance starts ok, although not all of them seem to be aquainted with current pug tactics for the path. Nobody feels confident enough to solo the lava field (I really need to practice that on the mesmer), so we try to 5-man that, loosing a couple of people (and Magg) in the field as a consequence. We eventually get through, not the fastest run I’ve had, not very coordinated at times, but the flame actually goes down in two rounds (instead of the dozend or so in the afternoon group).

“p1” afterwards (with some of the same people) was pretty smooth, with only small hitches. We actually got that done in 8 minutes total, a decent time for a pug.

Tune back in for tonight or tomorrow morning for the next episode of “Adventures in pug-land” .

Sariel V.7024:

I think. Someone who is on a server that never wins (like the last place server, I don’t know its name) is going to be confined to the same area of the map every week. That’ll make it much more difficult to get into objectives at the far side of the map, not only because they’re on a weaker team but they have to penetrate farther into enemy territory..

Actually thats not true. You overlook the fact that the servers at the bottom of the ranking are pretty empty of players outside of primetime, making it a lot easier to take over objectives in return, since there is noone there to defend them.

Personally I have fully mapped the WvW maps on two of my characters on Vabbi a while back during a time when the server was so far at the bottom of the ranking that there was less than a 5% chance to come up blue and no chance at all to come up green. I did most of the maps solo, hardly ever even seeing anybody else (since the few people that were in WvW mostly stuck to EB and ignored the borderlands). I remember the night the first of those two characters finally did get the missing points in the green borderland keeps in a random 3-man “zerg” with two strangers I had met on the map. It actually was fun, and very doable with a bit of patience.

Vix.6730:

Why should any player have to wait to finish their completion? Your argument holds no common sense. In fact, it sounds like you support the backwards thinking which led to many players getting frustrated to the point of quitting on their goal to attain a Legendary.

How about the skill points in all of those contested temples in Orr? Do you just solo them on any class without the help of a zerg doing the temple event? What about the POIs/skillpoints/vistas all over the maps that can be “contested” by champions/group events? Do you try a mad dash again and again until you finally make it to the point before dying, or do you wait until you overlevel/get other players to help? What’s the difference between these and the ones in WvW?

Starsurfer.7209:

I guess my main gripe is that it seems like everything has become “gotta finish as fast as I can”. It’s like a factory assembly line. You aren’t allowed to take your time when assembling a product. And since this is supposed to be fun, I don’t get how such a mentality took root in the less intense aspects of the game.

I dont think the attitude is special to this game. These days speed and eficiency seem to be valued highly in large parts of our daily lives. It’s just real world values rubbing off and being projected onto game values by a substantial amount of people.

That said, isolated cases like your examples of some big-mouth going all “I know best” in map chat or your former guildie harassing you in your personal story are just that: isolated cases. There are people like that around, you can’t really avoid them, but it does not mean that the majority of players is like that.

If you want to have an enjoyable dungeon run, post all the things you’d like to have (watching cut-scenes, no skipping, whatever) in the lfg. Don’t take anything for granted. Even with posting there’s still a good chance that people will come in without reading your requirements (happens to all groups really, no matter the preferences), but at least your chance at getting an enjoyable group together increases a lot.

Personally, I really enjoy playing dungeons (story and explorable) in all kinds of different settings. I’ve got friends who don’t care at all about builds, traits, or any kind of eficiency, but love to rp-walk through pleasant areas. I can spend an enjoyable hour or two with them in TA (yes, you can take more than an hour for a TA explorable path ), clearing out everything slowly but steadily, having a picnic inbetween, or just enjoying the sights. Other days, I prefer to run with friends who play (close to) meta builds and strategies, and love how we just breeze through places if the team meshes perfectly.

All kinds of playstyles (in dungeons and open world) can not only be viable but enjoyable. It’s when people with different playstyles clash instead of mesh that things go messy, and in the end nobody feels satisfied with the experience. The trick is not to look at the people who don’t agree with your preferences, but to find those you mesh well with, and build up a network of friends and guildies who you enjoy playing with. As convenient as the lfg is, you’ll always have a chance of meeting up with people that you don’t enjoy being around.

By the way, there is one benefit to running story dungeons that you are overlooking: every character created after the April 15 patch needs to run each of them (except AC) to unlock one of their traits. I have run a variety of story dungeons for that alone lately (aside from the 5 or so pre-April characters that have all stories unlocked for convenience in dungeon opening), and depending on group and personal mood, I have sometimes watched all the cutscenes, and other times skipped them all just to get it over with and get my trait.

Once you get a bit further into the game, exotic armor will actually be fairly easy to get, and it won’t feel like such a waste to give a new set for each character. You can get it in Orr for karma, in WvW for badges of honor + gold, on the trading post for straight gold, by crafting with material you’ve already collected (and even use it to level your crafting, like somebody above pointed out), from the dungeon vendors in Lion’s Arch in exchange for dungeon tokens, as rewards for pvp reward tracks, or if you are lucky as drops in all areas of the game.

I’ve pretty much got two exotic sets on each of my 80s (except for the latest, but that’s #11 already ), one for dungeons and one for wvw. I have a full set of ascended light armor on one of my mesmers, but I rarely switch it to another characters except for higher level fractals. There is a stat difference between exotic and ascended, but once you have a decent understanding of your character and their skills, you can pretty much do anything in this game with full exotics just as well as with full ascended.

Unless you have the crafting skill and materials ready to craft ascended soon, get yourself a nice set of exotic gear to enjoy the game now, instead of gimping yourself for weeks or months just so not to “waste” what will probably be easy to come by at the time you get your ascended equipment going. And if you like the skins of the exotic set you are after, go and buy it, even if it’s just to unlock the skin in your wardrobe.

Kabolt.7283:

I was so excited when I hit level 80 but I honestly feel like there is nothing to do anymore.

So your goal was to get to level 80, and now you’re looking for a new goal? Luckily, there is a ton more to do in game than reach level 80.

How about going for a special title ? Been there, done that? Dungeon Master? Master Crafter? Champion Hunter? Fashion Collector? Respected Achiever? Acolyte of Dwayna? Honorary Skritt?

“Endgame” is what you make it. This game doesn’t dictate the kind of content that’s meaningful at endgame, it gives you a wide array of choices and leaves you to pick whatever you enjoy. As such, you’ll also find that if you strive to “compete” with others, you won’t be able to compete with just any player, since they may care for totally different parts of this game than you do.

Personally, I took the first few characters to 80 and world completion just to get to know the game. Now that I have a good grasp of this game’s basic and advanced subjects (including 11 characters to 80 and 5, almost 6 to world completion), I find myself more into what I would’ve considered endgame in other games, like mastering my (7) classes to the point of low-manning (and eventually soloing) dungeons, being able to take other players through the world (open world, dungeons, WvW) and explain the world (and game mechanics) to them, aquiring an in-depth knowledge of as many parts of the game as possible.

Go ahead and dive into the world of Tyria. Level 80 is only the beginning, and the end is nowhere near in sight .

There have been people reporting this from the very start of the update that introduced the fossils. The chance of fossil drop is low enough to make it probable to go 100+ lockpicks without one.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Rasimir.6239:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

“exp”
I have more than 70% of the Dungeoneer X collector title in token worth (> 7203 tokens) by playing the dungeon (no PvP reward unlocks and no buying paths).

This would equal to over 100 runs of the dungeon.

Thanks for the definition … at least now I know I won’t be able to count myself as experienced for another year or so .

Everyone has its own definition, that’s mine and that’s why I don’t pug.
After 2 years you most likely ran it hundreds of time (hundreds of paths, not whole runs)

Actually, even though I’ve played this game for close to two years, I’ve only started running dungeons “seriously” a few months ago, and am still far from 7k tokens per dungeon (even if you add tokens earned on both accounts that I play on). Still I’m probably much more experienced in most dungeon paths that many of my casual guildies who have a ton more skins and tokens, but still think “speedrunning” is skipping a mob or two with a group of staff guardians, shout-heal warriors, bearbows, and gs mesmers .

“Experienced” is really a subjectiv criteria. As you can see in this thread, there are not many people who put up the same definition for the term. The problem is that there really is no fool-proof way to measure experience. Amount of tokens earned, paths run, hours spent in dungeons vary as much as the kinds of groups and strategies used by groups all over the game. Depending on mood and path, I would or would not join a group looking for “exp(erienced)” players, although I am confident enough in my abilities to feel that I would match the expectations included. Contrary to the poster above me (who I very much value as one of my favourite dungeon companions ) I’d never ask for exp (or even lvl 80) in an lfg though, because I feel it’s just too unspecific a criteria to really target the people I’d enjoy playing with.

juno.1840:

Anyway, this rambling is my thoughts after playing another MMO which is not as good as GW2, but I was playing it anyway and wondering afterwards why I was doing it.

Reading your post, I suspect the answer is quite simple: It’s something new, unknown, surprising to explore and discover. You’ll find that “new” is a very good hook to get you to play something, even if it’s not quite what you’d like it to be. Eventually that new-ness wears off though, it’s inevitable.

Personally, I like “goal-driven” content, a lot more than “reward-driven”. I have goals to fulfill in this game, like filling my wardrobe, gathering collections, discovering stories in event chains or dungeon paths, and a lot more. What I like even more though is that I am able to pursue these goals at my own pace. There is no gear inflation making me re-gear all my toons with every major update. There is no(t much) time-restricted content that I have to hurry to complete (especially now that the LS achievements aren’t timed any more). There is no major loot that I miss out on if I opt to do one kind of content over another (e.g. WvW rather than world boss tour).

The goals people enjoy are vastly different though. You’re not too fond of world exploration after having done it once. For me, it’s a very enjoyable way to play, and I’m closing in on my 6th 100% character, and still find places, events and stories all over the place I haven’t noticed before (or simply forgotten). A friend of mine tries to grab as many daily ap each day as he can, while I don’t care for daily ap at all (aside from the rare day when I just miss one or two daily achievements for the daily laurel at the end, then I might go out of my way to finish those).

As such, a wide array of possible goals (low-profile enough to make people not worry about going after them if they don’t care for the activity involved) would be awesome. We already have a lot of them, but we can always use many more.

My (incomplete) wish list:

• craftable minis with components spread all over the world, either through recipes (found as rare dungeon or boss loot, sold by karma and event merchants etc.), through unique mini ingredients used in discoverable recipes, or a mix of both
• “junky” collections similar to the trash collector, filled by collecting or using random weird stuff (trash, event trophy items, environmental weapons, …) and with some just-for-fun reward
• “interactable” collections, e.g. a collection to use all the transformation potions that can be found in dungeons, or one to use every available pet consumable (ogre whistle, fire elemental powder, …)
• “themed” collections like a golem collection that requires a portable golem bomb, a golem part event trophy item (dropped from the golem parts event near the northern-most waypoint in Metrica Province), a superior rune of the golemancer, a siege golem blueprint and more
• a “vista library” that allows me to store the view of a vista I have been to and to re-view it either through an in-game item (event reward? collection reward?) or at a special (but central) location/npc any time without traveling to the vista
• regional event-chain achievements similar to the ones introduced with the recent living story (e.g. the 5 events for the coiled watch chain), serving as an indicator to show me if I’ve been near the major stories/event-chains in the different regions/maps
• scavenger hunts for special crafting items spanning different kinds of content, like what they did with the Mawdrey backpiece

Miku Lawrence.6329:

“exp”
I have more than 70% of the Dungeoneer X collector title in token worth (> 7203 tokens) by playing the dungeon (no PvP reward unlocks and no buying paths).

This would equal to over 100 runs of the dungeon.

Thanks for the definition … at least now I know I won’t be able to count myself as experienced for another year or so .

Yoroiookami.3485:

My point is – why bother finishing a certain map, if you’re better off just traveling from map to map doing the easiest things, getting the easiest points of interests and vistas? There is no reason for you to do so, unless you actually enjoy discovering the world around you (Which you either want to do thanks to your amazing graphic card, or the curiosity), or unless you desperately want that 1 transmutation charge.

My question is: Why do you want everyone encouraged to finish maps? Right now you can explore everything if you like to, and won’t really miss out if you don’t. Why change that? There’s so much other stuff to do in this game … why not just leave everyone to do what they enjoy?

Kronos.3695:

Pandaman.4758:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

So I’m not the only one here that thinks the AP rewards (at least) aren’t worth the effort. That makes me feel better about ignoring certain collections.

I’m just viewing collections as something you just come across in the process of trying to achieve another goal, rather than being a goal itself, so I don’t particularly mind the low AP or rewards-of-dubious-worth.

Mmm, no?
Maybe a pair of collection will fill themself (skritt one for example), the rest you have to complete by trying to achieve them, not automatically by trying to achieve something else.

Mmm, yes?

Many of the collections fill out automatically for me on my quest to round out my wardrobe . I’m nowhere near done on any of them yet, but if I happen to have some dungeon tokens to spare, I’ll treat myself to a nice new skin or two, and eventually I’ll fill out those collections as time goes by. If I need to outfit a new character, I’ll keep an eye on the TP for the crafted skins that my wardrobe is still missing, or just craft them myself, thus also filling collections on the side.

The most “out of the way” I’ve gone so far collection-wise is going through the fine dining collection and cooking each of the steaks on there, then distributing those among the characters so each gets the food they most profit from. Similarily, I’ve treated my chars to a batch of master oils etc. they don’t normally get to use.

Maybe I’ll eventually go out of my way to grab a skin or two that I really wouldn’t have gotten without the collection, once it’s close to finishing, but only time will tell. I’m in no hurry to finish them, but am positive that I will finish most of them eventually without much trouble.

I know quite a few people in game who are constantly complaining these days how much work it is to get their daily achievements done (preferably all of them to not miss out on a single ap), pick up the daliy boss event bonus chests, do the daily crafting, harvest the daily nodes in their home instances, pick up the daily jp chests from jps where they parked a ton of alts, and maybe do some daily dungeon paths or fractal brackets to round out the grind. These people literally spend hours each night grinding out their daily bonus rewards that they feel forced to pick up and throw a fit if they happen to miss out on one of the rewards or another (due to lack of time or simply forgetting one step or the other).

Of course, it is their personal problem that they feel the need to pick up any daily bonus this game offers to them instead of just playing whatever they enjoy. But adding yet another daily bonus for whatever activity that possibly makes more people feel they miss out on if they don’t do whatever quest it is than it makes people feel additionally rewarded seems counter-productive to me.

The core of this game is not quest-driven but free exploration. You go out and do whatever you feel like, and are (in theory) comparatively rewarded no matter what you choose to do. There already are a lot of extra carrots around for people who prefer to be motivated by the rewards to do stuff. I honestly prefer to just go out and do whatever I want and to feel that I spend my time just as “productive” as people doing other things, instead of the game dangling (too many) daily carrots in my face all the time.

Extra daily quests for the sake of questing (like small scavenger hunts or solo bounties) would be right up my alley, but please no extra rewards. If the rewards are in the same league as regular dynamic events and possibly jp chests I’m all for it, but if it’s a reward system that adds to the “daily grind” for people then I don’t want anything like it.

Olvendred.3027:

Apparently I have some serious mental issues. What a way to find out

Don’t worry, you are not alone .

Personally I’m closing in on my 6th yellow (gold) star (8% to go), and I still enjoy taking my characters out into the world and going all over places I haven’t been to in a while. And guess what? I usually find something new, a formerly unexplored (by me) cave, a hidden chest, an event (or a whole chain) I hadn’t noticed before (or simply forgotten). If I get friends/guildies to join me for part of the journey it’s even more fun.

Map exploration to me is a great way to pass the time when I’m not in a mood for dungeons, WvW or PvP. I’d rather map-explore than run the world boss train or farm Dry Top events any day. Getting rewards in the end is a nice bonus, but not the reason for me to go out exploring in the first place. I do it simply because it’s what I find fun.

jackaljag.8637:

As far as I know you have a chance of salvaging insignias and inscriptions when the item has a non-craftable stat combo – ie. an item with Soldier’s or Magi’s stats may salvage in their respective insignia/inscription depending on whether it’s a weapon or armor piece, while, say, a Berserker’s or Cleric’s item will not, because those inscriptions/insignias can be crafted where the former can not..

This is basically it, although there is one exception to the rule: you can not salvage inscriptions/insignias from crafted items. If you buy items from the trading post for salvaging, make sure that the item is one looted by another player, not one already crafted.

frifox.5283:

I want a /partyinfo tool for my commander tag. Has to show your party members gear, traits, skills, how many times they ran the dungeon, and how many times they lied claiming to be “zerks”.

shivers remind me to never run a dungeon again if that ever happens. I’ve played a game before where you could get that information for every player around you, and the amount of times I had random strangers start berating me for using x or not using y in pugs was huge, and it was mostly people that couldn’t even handle the high-end dungeons themselves, dungeons I was easily playing with guilds and friends.

The gw2 equivilent would probably be talking down a mesmer that uses pieces assasin’s equipment instead of berserker, or a player already adapting to a new and rising meta build because he no longer runs last season’s meta (and yes, I’ve encountered both in gw2 pugs already, even without any tools that make that kind of information readily available.

As for the thread opener, I don’t really see the sense in binding raid-size dungeons (whatever the size turns out to be in the end) to commander tags. If there is such a thing as private dungeons for 2+ full parties, I see no reason why one of us has to spend 300 gold on an otherwise useless (to us) tag to be able to do that content. And how do I even know which commander is going into the dungeon? Will there be a kind of lfg that lists all commanders available?

saventis.1485:

… You are totally part of arena nets marketing team arnt you(suspicious eyes)

ill give it ago heh i really love this game iv just run out of things to do
thanks

Edit: thanks for the help that is

Sorry … I guess I got a bit carried away when writing my answer . But I just recently freed a character slot to get my own look at the NPE, and am having a blast leveling and (re-)discovering the game, much like I had on the 11 characters before. I’m still finding places I haven’t been to before, and passages across the map that I didn’t know existed.

There’ll be times up ahead when I’ll be found in dungeons again all day, or when I seem glued to the WvW maps, or whatever else keeps my interest at that moment, but for now I’m happy exploring the world through the eyes of a different race (my first norn past lvl 30).

I did Arah p3 a few days ago with my guild. We had three first timers with us, with maybe a total of 10 runs spread across the two “experienced” party members (across 2 years of play-time). All of us were surprised how easy it was. There was hardly a fight that stopped us, and the few that did went down easily on 2nd try.

I do remember how tough Arah explorable was at the start, and then it got a little easier when we learned to play properly. But it never felt this easy. Did they change Arah explorable and made it super easy?

aerial.7021:

obviously development in the last 250 years has seen improvement in boots to a point where automatic ground surface detection analysis (AGSDA) has reached a point, thanks to the overwhelming efforts of (likely) the Asura to deploy studs on contact of any slippery surface, such implementations are now so wide spread it comes as default standard in your boots.

Who are we to argue with 250 years of boot evolution, 250 years ago your ancestors had a place they could skate too, after some really savage injuries the ice was put under a good layer of solid effluent never to be slid sliding on again.

If you wish to partake in such dangerous activities may I suggest that the clever Asura (ArenaNet) whom saved countless lives with there AGSDA Boots, develop set of skiing boots, with a personal shield to keep the body parts inside at ALL times.

Nice try, but until I start sliding on ice when my boots break I won’t buy it .

saventis.1485:

Tman.6349:

Alternate toons? Join a social guild? Sucks you don’t care for any PvP tbh.

Sometimes another game might satisfy your need for variety or remind you how good you have it in GW2. I still play GW1 sometimes.

cant remember my bloody login info for gw1 lol
and iv got alts but feels same same and i do pvp occasionally but yea it dosnt really grab me like the rest of the game does

What kinds of alts do you have? Maybe shake things up by starting a race/class/gender combination you’ve never tried. If you haven’t played an asura yet, make sure to make one, seeing big ears flopping up and down while you play makes a huge difference .

Seriously, I’ve got 10 characters at lvl 80 already, and am currently leveling two more, with a few more waiting around lvl 20 for me to get around to playing them, and each character has their own personality and evolves differently as I go through the game.

Try not to play “efficiently” or goal-oriented, but just go out and try to see the world through your characters eyes, and let the game take you through the world organically. Poke your (character’s) nose into every hidden cave or valley you come across, just to find what’s in there. Let yourself be rewarded by seeing places and creatures you hadn’t met before, rather than by how much coin you can pilfer from their corpses.

Try to find fun in every step along the way rather than following a set goal. The world of Tyria is vast, and if you set your mind to it you can enjoy it endlessly without worrying about “what to do next”. There’ll always be something to do around the next corner.