Guild Wars 2

Well, it’s not really a “lake” anymore. :P
(Because ANet doesn’t want to have underwater anything as a reminder that underwater skills especially Revenant are unfinished)

There’s even a dialogue off in a far corner about how the lake isn’t there anymore. I was sad.

zealex.9410:

not sure why adding a skinning tool and tie the tiers of leather to the various mobs depending the lvl of the zone you would be so hard?

It’d be even easier to give zone-level appropriate loot to mid-level zones and have all armors give the possibility of salvaging cloth or leather in addition to whatever else they drop, since they all use it.

Fremtid.3528:

You don’t even get a bunch of t6 from it its mostly other leathers which explains the new low for t5 leather and why t6 leather hasnt budged. I did the farm a few times today and one time when i salvaged 40 patches i got 32 thick leathers and 3 hardened and some other leathers. This is our new hardened leather farm? Seems more like a thick leather farm to me which we didn’t need. Overall throughout the night for every hardened piece i got, i got a ton more thick.

This.

I trudged my way up there solo, running with as much swiftness as I could muster, got mad enough to use revive orbs in Sharpshooter Alley (thanks for hating on melee some more, ANet…), but I managed to thug a few boxes on the way up.

My reward (aside from a great jump-off point to explore the northern section of the map) was 2 thick leather sections.

Woo. :|

That aside, I do look forward to dragging guildies in and doing it properly, but still, the leather rewards are not what we were hoping for.

I’ll start off by saying, overall, I’m happy with the zone. As someone said in map chat, it feels like classic Tyria exploration.

I can’t speak of the story yet. I plan on finishing that tonight. What little I have done was interesting, if a bit frustrating. JENNAH, STOP STANDING IN EVERY RED CIRCLE YOU CAN FIND.

On the zone itself:

• Hearts seem to take a bit too long to complete. Upping the gains about 10-20% would probably be just right.

• Enemies feel more robust to some degree. I mean that in AI tactics and, unfortunately, in HP bars (but that’s been a thing throughout HoT). Not too difficult, though, so it feels like a decent spot for them to be in.

• Map completion has been a bit of an irritation, actually. I spent half of my swear words on invisible walls or false slopes that I know I can climb but can’t convince my character to stay perched on. Notably, there’s a bundle of rocks near a mastery point, on a slope in the bloodstone centaur corner. It looks climbable, like I should be able to get up there, but every surface just slides my character off. After bullishly suffering through sharpshooter alley (thanks for hating on melee some more, by the way…), I managed to find a jump point to explore the northern portion of the map.

• Remember that Ash Legion heart that everybody hates? …Thanks for bringing that back +1 with the eastern fort. [/sarcasm] The detection skill is unreliable, as it never seems to know what the jade constructs are doing.

Nice little jumping puzzle in Noran’s area. I appreciated the multiple paths that split and converge, giving the player a choice on which hazards to deal with.
Some items need conveyance, though.

• The entrance itself doesn’t look any different than the rest of the cramped storage.
• The key oil uses the icon for flaxseed oil. This makes it easy to skip over as loot when it is supposed to be used to create the oiled key for the end chest.
• Subsequently, I got screwed out of the chest at the end because I didn’t know what “checkpoint” I missed (I had the oil in inventory, but didn’t realize it), so I gave up and left. Found and used the oil later, then couldn’t get in because the door needed the regular key and not the oiled one. tl;dr- Recommend the door accept either key for entry.
  
  So in spite of numerous expletives, I can say I’m enjoying the new zone.
  A big thank-you nod to the entire dev team, even you make me want another legendary, stop it I can’t afford them all.

Nick Lentz.6982:

Since you’re at it, how about a new chat for roleplayers. Maybe a /rp so people do not have to turn off their emotes. I sadly block any one spamming emotes and that includes people who enjoy role-playing. It’s quite annoying and I’m sure most are great people, it’s just one of those things.

/rp could be a huge help.

Of course, so could adding a linkable user name in emote text so we can block/report as appropriate.

Tiny Doom.4380:

Rauderi.8706:

Most players that cop to it say either:
They salvaged ecto to get to max early on
They’ve played ‘regularly’ since launch and still don’t have +200% MF.

I hadn’t imagined WvW to be that lucrative.

I’ve been playing since launch. My main account has nearly 6000 hours played and 22kAP, just to give an idea of activity levels. I only hit 200% MF yesterday.

Even so, I’d be glad of an alternative use for the luck motes. If MF makes any difference at all it’s so minimal it has no effect whatsoever on my enjoyment of the game. I’d rather have a few of those random bags to open like you get from Princess any day. Those are fun.

Sounds pretty close to my playtime numbers. I think I’m somewhere over 5k hours, 21.5k AP, and I’m still not at +200%. I’m not stressing it, either. Mostly because it feels so invisible and I’m still not getting decent loot.

I’d save up my essence if there were an appropriate vendor (I almost said “eater”, let’s not have more of those…) for it. It doesn’t even have to be all that certain on the results, just give us a way to siphon off that and all the other items that build up for no reason.

I’m not sensing the most elegant solutions being put into place, to be honest.
The eaters are inventory bloat and siphon only a limited amount per day, so more eaters were added. Luck is overflowing and can come from every salvage, especially ecto. Ascended materials used to be rare, but now they come out of farmable areas, again to overflowing. Even getting the byproducts of the eaters goes back into the “bag within a bag” issue that may players and wrists complain about.

The whole shebang could have been simplified by placing vendors in strategic spots, like near the mastery vendors for oil/dust/ley or Lion’s Arch for almost everything else (ascended mats, luck, blade shards, green runes/sigils). If there’s a need to temper its market impact, limit transactions per day. Boom, done. The players will drive it from there.

Send enough energy, and it might melt the snow!

Really though, it’s one day on a patch. No biggie! We’ll be back to complaining about how short/difficult/unrewarding it is in no time~

Though, please to have teleport scroll book naow please? I love that we’ve gotten so many new zones and easy access to all of them, but my shared storage is getting crowded.

DanAlcedo.3281:

Even if being at 300% Cap is something rare (which should be not the case with all the loot anet is throwing at us) there will be a day where most people will be at cap.

Its the same with Bloodstone dust(which has a sink) or Lvl up Books (which need also a sink or a usefull spirit shard sink).

You just get it. Stack per Stack. Day per Day.

Indeed. That’s why I support some kind of purging method.

Vendor, honestly. We need more daily-purchase vendors for this sort of thing. We’ve gotten too many eaters. They clog up inventory space and are clunky to use.

For any item we just have waaay too much of, there should be a vendor somewhere to help shovel it off into something useful. Luck, airship oil, blade shards, etc.

For a luck vendor, turn in exotic luck by the hundred to get a random rare/exotic drop. Or random pile of T2-5 cloth/leather mingled with junk items. It’s easy to set a scale to the point where salvaging that much stuff doesn’t outpace the reward. Make the output dependent on Magic Find, so it justifies still investing in it.

Each of the HoT ascended mats could be traded in for the local currency, similarly to how bloodstone/petr.wood/berries become magic.

Stuff like that. We’re getting so much “worthless” stuff that it wastes our time and makes the game feel even more unrewarding than it is.

DanAlcedo.3281:

Rauderi.8706:

Maybe they’ll squeak one in with the patch. We got plenty of Ascended material eaters.

Though, max luck is still a “hardcore” or “you did this to yourself” issue, so I’m not sure if ANet’s inclined to fix it just yet.

“you did this to yourself” If you mean playing the game?

All this luck is from normal gameplay no farming. Im a WvW player.

That’s bizarrely impressive. Most players that cop to it say either:
They salvaged ecto to get to max early on
They’ve played ‘regularly’ since launch and still don’t have +200% MF.

I hadn’t imagined WvW to be that lucrative.

Maybe they’ll squeak one in with the patch. We got plenty of Ascended material eaters.

Though, max luck is still a “hardcore” or “you did this to yourself” issue, so I’m not sure if ANet’s inclined to fix it just yet.

Paulytnz.7619:

Rauderi.8706:

Chad.6104:

It’s based on the Haka. A traditional Maori warrior dance before a battle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BI851yJUQQw

That does make it incredibly appropriate for the Charr.

#NornWorstDance2012

Why not? They are a strong/warring race with their war “legions” (tribes) and culture being all about fighting and being strong.

Perfectly suitable I would think. Now if we were speaking about the Norn and their dance………maybe, just maybe you would have a point lol….

Yes, my two statements in the quote are not connected. XD

Charr dance = Appropriate and tangential learning.

Norn dance = Embarrassing and immersion-breaking nod to 1990s television.
I really wish I could change it to some other dance. :\

DirtyDan.4759:

AliamRationem.5172:

It’s okay to love Tangled Depths. I mean, isn’kitten

Objection! This map is pure horror to complete.

It’s still okay for him to like it.
And it’s still okay for me to hate it.

But if you ask him real nice, I’m sure he’ll show you around.

Chad.6104:

It’s based on the Haka. A traditional Maori warrior dance before a battle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BI851yJUQQw

That does make it incredibly appropriate for the Charr.

#NornWorstDance2012

So.. trying to justify your harmful play style by saying it’s benevolent?
Ha.
Haha.
Ha.

Pricing things out of people’s reach or inflating the value of uncommon goods doesn’t really do anything for the common player. A few of their goods go up in value, but so does the value of the things they wanted to buy. So it’s no real gain for anyone except the supposedly “noble” middlemen and not-quite-brokers.

If you were really “noble”, you’d be buying the existing sell orders and delivering them at market value to the buy orders. For you see, that would still drain gold from the economy (as we all agreed would be healthy), but there wouldn’t be a selfish, ignoble profit behind it.

If I recall right, there should be a guy in the middle of the crafting area in Lion’s Arch that can give you access to things you may have lost or sold by accident.

I don’t mind that the leather component is there. The big problem has always been no consistent means of getting that material. Cloth only comes from light armor. Leather from medium armor.

Now that all armor requires it for the insignia and/or inner padding, it ought to be so that salvaging an armor can drop any of the components that goes into making it.

AliamRationem.5172:

It’s okay to love Tangled Depths. I mean, isn’kitten

It’s okay to let people like what they like.

It’s also okay to beg ANet to never do that clusterkitten again~
It’s also okay to insist ANet learn to build a decent minimap. >.>

We still need emotes to allow linking to the creator, so it’s easier to report chat spam and block nuisances.
We still need emotes to have a much shorter observable range.

“…get rid of all these Queen Jennah minis. That’s what we really meant when we said we’d kill her…”

Crinn.7864:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

It’s ok to go to dungeons or fractals with builds and classes that are what you enjoy playing first, and “optimal” second.

If those builds get your party killed it’s not ok.

Please remember that your rights end where someone’s else’s begins. Please don’t be a kitten.

It’s okay to leave a party that isn’t working for you.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I feel like I should bump this with my opinion instead of creating a new thread, as it is not too old.

GW2’s endgame is unrewarding because it is unrewarding.

Vertical progression exists, but it’s not meaningful. It was designed that way to appeal to two different playerbases, but it ended up appealing to no one. Lovers of horizontal progression design hate ascended gear. Lovers of vertical progression design would much rather play games entirely dedicated to it than waste their time for months to get a subtle and optional 10% boost.

Horizontal progression is apparently the big focus of GW2, but it’s generally mediocre or highly flawed. Masteries are finite, and only a few of them are truly meaningful outside of a single map – same for purchasable map bonuses. Legendaries are too hardcore and niche, but there’s little else giving you that sense of adventure that comes from collections, meaning that your average player is left empty-handed. Visual-wise, Anet takes too long to implement new, complete armor skins, and they are generally mediocre: bland or ridiculous, copy-pastes of other existing skins, etc. Wardrobe is driven by a rental mechanic, which is unsatisfying, and there’s not even a feature to save and load customized skin sets.

On top of that, the entire loot system is based around collecting an endless amount materials that have no immediate use. Looted gear is nothing but salvage fodder. And if you don’t care about crafting, all you can do with the massive material spam is to sell them at the TP one by one until your patience runs dry.

When the “best” rewards GW2 has to offer in the last patches are a single piece of skin, or an item that converts excessive useless materials into slightly less useless crap, then it’s safe to say that GW2 is one of the most unrewarding RPGs I’ve ever played.

Not to mention that most of the interesting skins and horizontal convenience items are locked behind the trading post and/ or the gem store, leaving little opportunity to have good rewards placed on in-game activities.

It’s a solid game otherwise, and some rewards ARE meaningful and impactful (some of the masteries, for example. Some good skins here and there. Etc.), but ANet has had trouble at designing a rewarding game since day 1, regardless of game design philosophy, and regardless of their focus on horizontal progression.

100% this.

It’s a good thing I have checklists, that I enjoy the actual gameplay, and that I’m attached to my characters, because if I were just going for the graphical carrots the game dangled in front of me, I wouldn’t stick around for the excessive grind and drip-release of crafting materials as rewards.

Jitson.6051:

Enable a search bar/function for browsing traits. Every kitten time I attempt to switch to the trait that ‘reduces fall damage’, it takes like 5 minutes before I find it or I give up and jump off a cliff to my death before respawning and simply walking around an easier way. For reference this is in WvW, I mainly do WvW, so that’s where I enjoy spending my time, so not being able to glide, there are some jumps that are landable ONLY if you use the profession-specific trait to reduce the fall damage.

Relevant wiki page: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage#Falling_damage

I kind of don’t understand why this trait is locked into a particular spec either. Gliding makes the trait completely useless in pve. It can’t be used in pvp because of balance issues. It would be useless in fractals/dungeons. So WvW is the ONLY mode where this trait might be relatively still useless, because boohoo anet didn’t want to stir up the ‘competitive’ nature of wvw by adding gliding.

It would even be simpler just to have an On/Off box to enable to trait. I would gladly temporarily give up one of my other traits just to enable the reduced fall damage trait for the one jump I would need to make once every blue moon.

In short either: 1. Enable gliding in wvw
OR
2. Make it easier to find and enable ‘reduce fall damage’ trait.

Please and thankyou, sincerely,
the adventurous one who keeps jumping off cliffs in wvw

Yeah, I can’t imagine anyone using the fall damage traits for anything other than silly gimmick reasons anymore. Gliding makes it irrelevant in PvE, and even then, the side effect (knockback, muddy terrain, etc.) was so conditional as to be very niche.

It would be better to free up that trait slot for something useful and move falling damage reduction to a Tyria mastery or WvW leveling path. For reference, see Pact Commander Mastery and Provisions Master in how those lines deal with auto loot.
Falling damage should be the same way.

azureai.9764:

You’d think the personal story characters would at least show up in your home instance. I want to see my charr’s warband show up now and again!

I have seen them, but it’s a total coin flip as to whether or not they’ll show up. For Charr NPCs, they tend to be idling in the bar somewhere. Noted Clawspur and some of the storyline recruits at some point.

But c’mon ANet, give us our warband back!

Flatley.1620:

I had a though it would be along the lines of: Player A is talking to Player B about people in Queensdale and what they were getting up to. Player C comes along and mentions that Ine Duran needs grubs and, after some chit-chat, you all go off and help, RP’ing the event all the way.

That is something you can still do, though I would recommend that as a planned event with a guild over an impromptu public event.

Tatwi.3562:

Because they don’t want to.

In every MMO I have played, the forums are always filled with these, “Why won’t people play with me???? stomps feet” type posts from the PvP crowd. The answer, as seen above, is always the same and really that’s all there is to it. No big mystery, no “problem” that can be solved…

And then when people do come play with them… “Why won’t these scrubs l2p??? stomps feet” So.. yup.

But we don’t need it for guilds.

We need it for ourselves!
Personal housing, ANet. HINT. HINT.
..yeah, I’m done being subtle. ;3

Hopped into EotM yesterday. Made a little progress toward the Forced Engagement Compensation Track (aka Gift of Battle Reward Track), but not nearly enough to justify the hour+ I spent on it.

• Loot is minimal for a comparable amount of time.
• Following the zerg is a bore. If you’re not up at the front, you don’t get credit for captures. Better bring your warhorn.
• I wish I had known I needed to be level 20 for the Provision track, so I can auto-loot like a normal plebe. -_-

It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t fun, either. But..

• Thanks to the commander who tagged up and lead a group of barely-talkative zerglings.
• Army engagements were.. eh. The AoE deadzone is an utter bore, but I’m inspired to go in with a staff/wells necro just to chop into the enemy zerg again.
• Getting hammered from behind wasn’t as frustrating as it should have been. Kind of a /shrug, oops, and then I laughed a little. If you get smeared by a zerg that large, you deserved it. :P

Nothing in that makes me want to go to WvW, but I suppose I can endure EotM enough to finish that track. …4 times. ;_;

In general, you can find some folks roleplaying around town. It’s polite to ask them via whisper if you wish to join in. Some people are very open and will flow with it, others get very standoffish (and will whisper about how “rude” you are for, y’know, publicly participating in a public roleplaying scene :P).

Also, check the guild recruitment sections here and on reddit for possible RP guilds. They can provide a lot more guidance.

Side note, racial capital cities are the easiest place to stumble on RPers. (Especially the Grove or Rata Sum… the emotes go from end to kitten end.) I remember seeing some folks in Divinity’s Reach while I was setting off firecrackers. They were gushing about this baby griffon they were RPing about, when the quote comes up:
“Touch her, she’s so fluffy!”
What I wanted to say as my Charr passed by was:
“I said that to a female once, and all I got was a claw across the muzzle.”
But I didn’t, because I was behaving that day.

Yay, another week of easy dailies!

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Rauderi.8706:

Nah. If we’re allowed to burn down anything, it should be the Grove first.

If players are allowed to burn down the Grove, they would be allowed to burn down everywhere.

I totally read that in Silverwastes-officer voice. XD

Manasa Devi.7958:

Threads like this always make me wonder why more people don’t like classical ballet, opera and free jazz.

Because I enjoy belly dancing, animations, and acid jazz instead?

Nah. If we’re allowed to burn down anything, it should be the Grove first.

Aeolus.3615:

Warrior Charr is kewl, kitten.

High five, soldier!

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Isn’t that what Map Rewards do?

Kinda? Except the rotation on map rewards isn’t conducive to farming at all. In core Tyria, if I recall properly, it takes two events to get a reward from the track. There are three or four items on each track, at least. So that’s at least 6-8 events before you actually see a guaranteed leather/cloth scrap.
That’s waaay bad. :\

Honestly, there’s two changes that could make all the difference in dealing with this leather/cloth issue:
1. On loot rolls, if it’s not a rare or exotic drop for a high-level character, always drop the zone’s level equivalent gear. RNG on gear drops is still a factor in what a character gets, but it makes getting those cloth/leather drops much more certain. On the high end it means level 80s getting fewer junk-80 drops that normally get vendored or salvaged for T5s, which is a bloated market overall (except leather…).
2. For salvaging, change the drop charts to include anything that would go into the production of the item. That includes leather/cloth possibly dropping from all armor. Do exotics have a higher drop rate for T6? Because it certainly doesn’t feel like it.

“Later, cub.” ™

Speaking honestly, I don’t consider PvP because people take it too ruddy seriously. They can’t lose graciously, and their egos are just obnoxious.
Beyond that, the general imbalance between classes doesn’t interest me.

WvW, or as I call it, Walk v Walk, is 90% following a zerg around and tooting warhorns until something actually happens. Usually, it’s an undefended fort or lol-steamrolling over an unprepared pair of roamers. (I’ve been on the opposite end of the latter. Hilarious~.) It bores me.
Even more boring, when the map you port into is being utterly dominated and there’s no population on the map to speak of. It’s pretty useless to even try at that point.

Wanze.8410:

Remind me again which recipes saw the amount of materials reduced in the past?

Didn’t happen often (because ANet lootnerfing stingy blah blah blah), but:

Soft Wood Planks.

There was a glut of it for a while, the refinement went from 3 logs to 4 logs. Naturally, the price spiked. Then, for some odd reason, it dropped to two (2) logs per plank, and the price is still well above vendor, on an item that is easily farmable.

The econ team normally sticks to their guns, but they’re not immovable.

IndigoSundown.5419:

OriOri.8724:

I wonder what the rationale was behind going through the extra work to make a whole new farm for leather instead of adjusting a few dozen (at most) numbers in recipes

At a guess, it’s ANet doing what they often do: trying to address multiple issues with one change. The issues, as I see them:

1. There’s never enough stuff to do. Adding repeatable content players will want to do is a good thing.
2. New leather supply will address some peoples’ concerns about the materials issue. <—
3. It’s being billed as “challenging.” If it is, then it’s something else to scratch that itch.

We had been itching for a direct farm for leather and cloth. Silk has dipped enough to be TP-buyable without much pain, but the leather issue is still getting out of hand at T5/6. Hopefully the direct farm that’s being floated covers T6 and we get a refinement adjustment for T5.

Pifil.5193:

Challenging group farming spot for leather.

I don’t know why but that amused the hell out of me. A better solution might be to undo some of the damage you guys did with the insignia changes, maybe change it to five squares, but OK, “challenging group farming” it is.

Yeah, to be honest, I’m afraid this is going to be a T5 leather farm, instead of the much-needed T6.

Really though, fix the insignia and refinement recipes. I know we’ve been craving for a direct material farm, it’ll be a pittance compared to making those recipes reasonable.

Palador.2170:

A new currency for every map.
I wish I could say ANet has learned their lesson on this one, but it’s pretty clear that they really haven’t. Most maps in HoT and LS3 have their own currency. Stop it. (Yes, I’m counting Bloodstone Shards, Petrified Wood, ect. as a currency, because that’s one way to use them.)

Likely a change we won’t see. The constant changes of currency are there to extend play time for those who build entirely too much currency of one type. I wish they had stopped at the Unbound Magic for all 3 zones, but then it would pretty much lead to Bitterfrost never getting played. (It was not a good map for doing stuff. :\)

A new type/level of Hero Points.
I’m sure ANet has already realized that some of us have characters that have gained plenty of hero points, but not spent them. The idea is that when the next expansion comes out, we’ll be done or nearly done with getting any elite specs that come with it. Don’t try to counter this by making them require special Expansion 2 Hero Points, or 800 Points (earned 20 at a time in expansion HP challenges). And don’t make the new elite require filling out the old elite, either. It’s not fun, don’t do it.

Agreed. I’m not holding my breath that there won’t be point inflation, but I think the community was pretty clear before that we wanted the elite spec for doing the content, not as a reward for it.

Overly confusing maps.
There’s a difference between complex and confusing. Complex can be good. Confusing is not. Better marked main paths, elevation changes, and well placed reliable waypoints are important.

Amen to that. I’m really hoping ANet gives us some awesome mapping tools to do our own exploring with. Tangled Depths would be so much more tolerable that way.

Group Hero Point Challenges
Group challenges are fine, in fact I love the idea. Making them Hero Challenges is bad, though. Hero Challenges should be solo activities, so we can advance ourselves at our own speed. Put in the triggered group challenges as their own thing. And make them Points of Interest, so people trying to gather others for the event can call out the location on the map. (People that don’t know where “Bat” or “Spider” is will not go to help you when you call.)

This. And I’ll echo what I said earlier, because someone else brought up Queen Mushroom:
If it’s an awkward location to reach, out of the way of normal travel, either make it veteran/elite/commune.
If it’s in a well-traveled, identifiable area, I’m actually okay with champions/group events. I usually have no trouble finding folks for arrowhead or mushroom king.

One Shot Masteries.
If we go through the trouble of earning a mastery, it should be useful throughout the expansion and maybe beyond. Gliding is an example of a good mastery line. Exalted Lore is an example of a terrible mastery line because it’s of real use in one zone only. (Parts of it also make no sense for the story, but I can grudgingly forgive that.)

Poison Mastery. Not only was it a missed opportunity for substituting Stealth Mastery at Axemaster, it’s generally a useless ability that merely permits you to go into some parts of zones. It could have been so much more, but it’s really just there to clear a roadblock (of instant death, gg ANet). I really don’t want to see another one of those, unless I can use it to look smugly at a boss or five and gloat “Haha, your skill didn’t work on me!” It’s a petty feeling, but kind of important.

Crinn.7864:

imho large shoulder pads look good on Charr. The “buttcape” is archtypical for medium armor (Rox is a medium armor ranger)

Although I do get annoyed by buttcapes that don’t have a slit for the Charr’s tail. (arrggg clipping)

This one does have a tail cover, at least. Of course, when in flight, the buttcape flares out too much and the entire tail, cover and all, clips through the buttcape. (so yes, arrggg clipping)

Pifil.5193:

ArchonWing.9480:

Should be able to craft boosters if you ask me.

Now that’s a good idea!

Seconded!

Or maybe some luck-based foods for Chef 500?
/nudgeANet
I’m being silly, but it’s actually an idea. Take the normal high-end foods, use Exotic Essences of Luck to infuse them with bonus [magic, gold, and/or xp] without removing the foods’ other bonuses.

Or, to go a bit far with it, have a vendor on each map that trades a clump of exotic luck (5? 10? I’unno, just spitballing numbers here) for a map progress reward. Wishful thinking really, but I can see how that’d easily go south or be ripe for abuse.

Perhaps a Forge recipe?
3 green sigils + X Exotic Luck = random mini-booster? Mini-selectable-bonus-booster.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

LucosTheDutch.4819:

Ameepa.6793:

I really do enjoy the kitten filter

It does help to keep the forum nice to read. It even changes the posts that would otherwise be full of kitten and kittens into readable versions that sound way less idiotic.

Are you kittening kidding me? You kittening think that godkitten kittening kitten bullkitten kittening up my entire post sounds less kittening idiotic than proper godkitten kittening swearwords? Jesus kittening Christ. The kittenty kitten filter is kittening bullkitten.

Seriously, for kittens sake. Aren’t we all adults here? What about the old saying “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me”?

kitten. kitten. kitten. kittening kittens. kittening bullkitten. Godkitten it. I hate kittens.

The reason it’s here is because this is the forum of a business, not an unofficial fan generated forum. This is the face that ANet presents to any one who comes by to check and to all who post. A company that bills itself as being friendly and actively keeping the player base friendly can hardly have an official forum full of profanity. It looks bad.

In addition, profanity heats up conversations and derails threads as people get angry. Using the kitten filter takes the bite out of kitten kitten you and allows tempers to cool.

It serves a purpose even if you don’t like it.

>.> Am I the only one who thought Lucos’ too-well-structured kittenstorm needed a /s on the end?

ArchonWing.9480:

Which lower levels won’t have a problem with. Of course they’re not going to drop for you.

The last few times I leveled normally, I salvaged things nonstop and stockpiled a bunch of linen, wool, etc. At some points I would be selling green armor for 7s a pop. Easily enough to self-gear the character. It’s why the system works as it does.

So the solution to getting material at end-game is
…to make a level 40 character.
I shouldn’t have to mention how unusually skewed that is.

If you want stuff from LS3, you can also spend your unbound magic on these:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic-Warped_Packet
or
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic-Warped_Bundle
Sell materials and buy what you need.

Scanned the packets contents. 50s-1g for a chance at something useful?
Sell the materials? Yeah, that 10 Copper Ore drop is going to sell for much golds.
It ought to be obvious that the whole point of the discussion is that we’re done with dribbles and drops with frustrating RNG. Gambling unbound magic and gold to get something worth less than the gold value makes for horrible resource management.

And thinking of it from a lowbie point of view, if those materials are so scarce, a crafter can’t afford to sell those materials anyway. Sure, my first level 40 thief/leatherworker could sell his materials, but what’s he going to actually advance his crafting with?

Read above.
They don’t need to craft at all. Just save up gold from selling materials and buy equipment.

Then what about Ascended? That can’t be bought. Pieces, perhaps, but the actual crafting skill can’t be purchased without going back to buy all those materials that were sold earlier. It’s nonsensical.
Unless there’s more advocating for “I hope I get something useful” RNG drops from high-tier fractals (which need some Ascended gear) or if/however it happens in PvP/WvW. I haven’t bothered to check, but those game modes aren’t my thing.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Rauderi.8706:

I’d actually feel better about going into lower level zones if I’d stop getting greens and below that were below level 80.

That’s how it was at launch. A lot of people asked for (and ANet agreed) that it would be better if at least some of the rewards were consistent with the zone’s level.

I’m aware of the history of it. After the occasional but heavy-handed pokes some of our materials have gotten, it might be time to revert that change. The RNG in LS3 zones are still giving out random tiers, which means T3-4 cloth/leather isn’t funneling in fast enough.

ArchonWing.9480:

The only real problem is leather:
https://www.gw2bltc.com/en/item/46739-Elonian-Leather-Square

I have even less T4 leather than I do linen. Random drops in level-appropriate zones aren’t providing enough because a good number of them end up being L80, and the LS3-RNG scraps aren’t providing enough either.

And thinking of it from a lowbie point of view, if those materials are so scarce, a crafter can’t afford to sell those materials anyway. Sure, my first level 40 thief/leatherworker could sell his materials, but what’s he going to actually advance his crafting with?

Re: Buy gear and Mystic Forge: It’s a plausible, if irritating workaround. Looots of clicks to get one or two scraps that still need to be refined. It might be a nice idea to have a karma vendor in Lion’s Arch that actually just sells small amounts of the material, on a limited buy. Take the cost of the go-to item, for example Crab Grabbin’ Gloves, charge a convenience markup, and limit the buy per day. It could even use the multi-tier purchasing like some of the holiday vendors use.
6,400 Karma: 10 Linen (once per day)
8,000 Karma: 10 Linen (etc)
If that’s too much, tweak the numbers down appropriately:
2560 Karma: 4 Rugged Leather (1/day)
3200 Karma: 4 Rugged Leather (etc)

If there’s a worry that a vendor would take away from the zones, put them into the zones. It would drive traffic into the mid-tier zones and give players a direct semi-farm to get materials that are otherwise driven by whimsical RNG.

OriOri.8724:

I think the system is working as intended. It encourages max level players to play in lower level maps, which helps the new players out since there will be experienced players there to help with events and just to talk/answer questions about the game. You wouldn’t find this if all tiers of mats were available on nodes on lvl 80 maps.

The way that drops change as you levelup does annoy me though, but mostly because its so inconsistent. At level 80 I get just as many minor sigils from bags as I did when my character was level 20, yet I will never, ever use a minor sigil on my level 80 character.

One of the bigger issues with the downleveling tactic is that the drops we get from open-world mobs might be zone-appropriate (good for farming materials of that level) or character-appropriate (a level 80 green is relatively useless).
The map rewards that give cloth/leather of that tier are muddied with other, less important materials. It’s a good system overall, just weighted oddly for something that gets spent by the hundred.

I’d actually feel better about going into lower level zones if I’d stop getting greens and below that were below level 80.

AliamRationem.5172:

The vertical maps are simply amazing and many players love them. There is no reason they should be excluded entirely from the next expansion.

I still can’t stand Tangled Depths, but my reasons and hopefully solutions are splattered in more relevant parts of the forums. :P

Overall, I like the verticality. Sprawling zones are nice, almost “polite” by game design standards, for exploration, but the layers add a lot more density for events to take place. I’d rather it not have been meta-gated the way Verdant Brink did it or locked behind masteries (making shortcuts good, insta-kill in green fog bad). Having all the relevant masteries now, it’s not such a pain in the tuckus, but it was really demotivating as a newer player to the experience.

tl;dr – Vertical maps good; puh-leeeeze upgrade map tools to compensate.

As for HPs, again there is no reason group challenges should be excluded entirely. Many of us enjoy running HP trains and have made a lot of friends helping other players out with these challenges. Further, there are plenty of solo options for players who prefer to pursue them. I can agree that perhaps there should be more of them available for such players.

Philosophically, one shouldn’t have to wait for an HP train or other nonsense just to advance a character. Buuut, I got to thinking about the most annoying HPs and why they suck:

• Off the main roads
• Far from waypoints
• Champ spawns (CC has little/no effect for defense) not tuned low enough for single engagement
• Getting screwed by terrain

So if there are going to be group-event hero challenges, I’d make the recommendation that those appear on major thoroughfares, so it’s easy to find people to join in. If it’s supposed to be a complicated/hidden point to get to, then make it a commune point with, at most, an elite guard.

Hyper Cutter.9376:

That fight is absolute garbage, and I have literally no idea how Anet expects anyone to do the achievements for it. The boss will just go off and attack the NPCs, or its charge attack will get hung up on obstacles, doing it in five minutes is impossible without a group (and maybe even then).

It’s even worse in a group. More targets for the charge to get stuck on. I joined someone else’s instance to try the 5-minute achievement and the “don’t get hit by the poorly conveyed, irritating freeze attack” achievement. The stupid boss chased me up a ramp in an attempt to set up its charge. :\

joneirikb.7506:

Heck, Guardian players tend to be surprised if I talk about other skills than Meditations or Shouts :p

“Oh, you know what would be awesome? If Guardians got an elite spec to summon spirits-”

“They already can.”

“…wait, what?”

/snerk

I’m actually less worried about the skills that need to be filled in because they’re only healing or elite utilities. For utility skills, you pick 3 of 16, and there ends up being quite a few weak ones. Very likely, you’ll also take the optimizing skill if two or three of those match in type, to score extra benefit and the cooldown reduction. (Except Banners. Looking at you…)

For healing, there are different methods of doing so and different side benefits those can give (AED for shrugging off insta-kills, elementalist glyph to gain a boon with healing, etc). While there still might be a huge favorite in that slot, the extra benefit from the typing and the cooldown reduction can change the expected healing output and utility.

Elite utilities allow for some of the more unique effects, limited by longer cooldowns. Each of those skill type domains could have something really nifty in them. Or, they can replace some of the, sadly, really crappy elites that already exist.

It’s not something I see happening outside of an expansion, though. Creating new skills and inserting them into the existing framework also means re-tooling skill point costs to fit in the 1-80 level scheme again. Not a huge effort, but it’d have to be done for each class and each gap, then skill points have to be returned and players rebuilding all of their trait assignments. An MMO usually tries to avoid that sort of upheaval outside of ramp-up times to new expansions or in between PvP seasons.

Sariel V.7024:

Over the whole friggin’ nation?

They built a wall. It faces upwards. :P