Guild Wars 2

I wanted to enjoy the zone more, but getting from place to place was riddled with packs of enemies that seemed to catch me even at full Swiftness. Near constant Chill and the more-than-occasional Freeze, which can’t be broken with a stun break, just made the zone absolutely annoying. I’m over the constant hard-CC that the devs think makes for a challenge. Which, by the way, those mushrooms should have stayed in Magus Falls. Seriously. Some of the most irritating, one-note creatures followed me into content that really should have shown some progress. And they all explode now, not just the soldiers.

For all the frustration, I’ll probably have much nicer things to say once I sit down all day tomorrow and really dig into it. Glad to see the other Ascended trinkets in the new zone. ( Even though jewelcrafting has been utterly worthless for years. ;_; )

Tengu potion!

Though, I’d really like to see where ANet goes with the idea overall. Possibly make the old post-wardrobe tonics combat capable as well. (and then make them Outfits instead of tonics!)

torgar.4015:

Its great and all, but man I’d love skipable cut scenes :/

And reset nodes after story steps if there is an achievement available/missed.

Jaken.6801:

Please have aureen just walk to the next Generator and don’t fight every Ooze. it’s so annoying to wait for her…

And possibly fatal, when you get that pack of 3 Elites and the legion of smaller ones waiting to eat your face. I can hold off that cluster for a while and Aurene can rush the generator.

Quick thought as it occurs:

Can we stop with the achievements that are “oops, messed up, have to start the whole thing over”? I don’t mind them being there, but the exclusion of a quick restart is really grating.

Ayrilana.1396:

Ha. Another copy and paste issue like the one with the Sentient Aberration.

That’s.. kind of worrisome, actually. :\
Glad I wasn’t home to discover that yet. Excited to see the node show up, but there really ought to have been more care invested. I’m sure it’ll get fixed in short order.

Haven’t had a chance to play just yet, but I was super bouncy excited by the patch notes:

Creatures in Bloodstone Fen will no longer be able to throw rocks at flying players 6,000 units away. Their range has been reduced to 2,000 units.
A Petrified Wood home instance node is now available for purchase in Ember Bay.

Yes!
(I’ll have something more meaningful to add when I get home. XD)

I expect that music score (pun alert) will go up once you get into the Heart of Thorns areas. Auric Basin is love. <3

After FFXIV, crafting will be a huge disappointment, unfortunately. But, GW2 will give you 10/10 on sheer convenience, so it almost balances out.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Ardid.7203:

Thanks for illustrating my point, Teniz. A master race which is basically Drizzt mixed with a moth. Swimming.

Yah. I look at those pictures and wonder how many would want the Largo “master race” if it didn’t have those wings.

And those wings…

Can you imagine trying to do a JP with Largos in the group? They’ll have the White or Black wings on top of the Largo wings of course or maybe the huge Spinal Backpack, making a truly ugly double winged char.

The double-winged waterdrow ranger: Largolas Sephiroth with a bear pet named Cloudstrife.
You put this in my head, Fleshy, and I can’t unsee it. ;_; I blame you.

There are much better options to consider. I still remember someone did a really boss mockup of the Skritt character creation screen.

Dadnir.5038:

You can pretty much support with any profession except the necromancer… Well some will argue that the necromancer have support but there is still a difference between support and debuffing.

If you “love” to heal, I’m not sure if GW2 is for you but you can aim for an elementalist, a ranger or a revenant.
- My personal opinion is that the elementalist is the profession with which it is the easier to do so or perhaps the less tricky.
- The core ranger have some healing abilities but to really have an impact with your heal, you’ll need to achieve the druid specialization (While I personnaly have a really poor opinion of the druid avatar, I’m still forced to recognize that it’s the meta healer at the moment).
- The revenant healer use the ventari legend to dish out some impressive heal. The playstyle of this legend is difficult for players that are used to the game, however, since you are a newcomer, I guess that you have an advantage here.

With this in mind, there’s some considerations:
Druid (Ranger elite spec) doesn’t become available until you have all your skill points from the core class assigned (which happens at level 80 regardless of other exploration). You won’t get to see Druid healing until then. I wouldn’t recommend it for a first level 80, but instead a character that you’ve done some exploration, so you have more skill points available to access Druid. Or make it your second 80 and use the boost after you’re adjusted to the game a bit. Druid’s top-notching healing for the game, but the delay in getting it leaves you with a choice.

Revenant’s healing spec is sort of complicated, and I’m not sure the healing output is worth the effort. (Rev players, correct me if I’ve erred on that.) It can be fun and kind of hectic, but I don’t see many people using it.

My recommendation is Elementalist. Water-element is good healing overall, and its trait line supports it naturally, even without the elite spec, so you get adjusted to using healing skills fairly early. The class can be pretty squishy, but if you kite well and stick with it, it has some of the most robust utility.

sephiroth.4217:

I’m not afraid of raids, it’s raiders afraid of me. (being a pug that’s never entered a raid, experienced raiders only)

Bwahaha, probably the best, most concise statement I’ve seen on the matter.
+1 to you!

Mea.5491:

No new race, fix clipping issues on existing races first…

As much as I might like a new race for the extra aesthetics, yeah.

I’d be hoping for much better Charr options and getting rid of the obnoxious clipping. That might bring more people into playing them and thus justify putting in better effort, instead of the shame spiral of “ew clipping, won’t play Charr” → “we won’t fix Charr because no one plays them”.

Teniz.5249:

New race?

Either Largos or…

#NoWaterDrow2016AndBeyond

Besides, they’re all Steve’s minions anyway.

DarcShriek.5829:

Did you say capes?

Now that you mention it, I thought something felt missing.

Color me surprised! An extra hat tip to the very-committed folks at ANet for daring to push content right before a holiday. Let’s hope it goes smoothly!

Shadow Bane.9362:

I’d still rather Skritt over Tengu personally. To make Skritt work it would have be a smarter Skritt without relying entirely on the collective all the time but they’re so deeply involved in the machinations of the world that it seems the most appropriate. Most Tengu tend to just want to bury their head in the sand and go hide some where and watch everything die and burn around them, no thanks.

That and I want my Skritt engineer :}

Skritt would also cash in box price + $90.
Rats PLUS Birds means I’d have no wallet left. ;_;

Ridiculous amount of work for a time-strapped company, but I still want my Tengu. Expansion cost + $90 guaranteed.

Ashen.2907:

I would be very interested in seeing a source indicating that Anet is 100% opposed to open world dueling. If nothing else it would be nice to be able to link it when topics such as this come up.

100% opposed is a bit of a stretch. There was a blurb (that I’m too lazy to find :P) that had one of the devs on record to the effect of “At some point, we wanted an option for duels, but it’s not feasible.”

Henry.5713:

Having to go to a dedicated servers that locks you away from everyone while you participate in your duels is not the same. That is stuff that I do to practice against my friends or other people.

You don’t need an audience. If you do, seek help.

It is still not what we are talking about. Doesn’t allow you to duel while you are waiting for something or someone and allows only a very limited numbers of players to be on one server and has even less room for spectators.

Costume Brawl. There, it’s something to do. Solved.

The ability to link any gear you can copy from the wiki is a very cheap version of an actual inspection feature. It comes with way more problems than inspection with the
added bonus of people using it to fake stuff. Nobody should be happy with it.

“Someone fake-linked zerker gear to get into my dungeon speedrun and then linked their all-Cleric after we beat the boss and laughed. It happened once, but it hurt my feelings forever.”
Exactly the same logic you kewed about further up the page when the complaint was “I don’t want to be harassed by duelists who won’t take no for an answer.” Seems like ignoring the negatives when it’s something you want is pretty common.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Rauderi.8706:

Danikat.8537:

There’s been speculation that there will be an update in November, which obviously won’t be tomorrow since they haven’t announced it, but could be the 22nd or 29th.

If it’s even worth speculation, we probably won’t get it until after Thanksgiving. It’d be foolishly cruel to set out a big patch before a major family holiday. If we’re getting one, it’ll probably be sometime into December.

Imo it would be more foolish to let players from all over the world wait because one country is having a holiday. But considering Anet is based in the US that’s probably exactly what will happen…

Oh well. I’d be fine with waiting a few weeks more… if we got some info! I want to know more about the next episode already! The wait isn’t what’s killing me, it’s the lack of information.

I wasn’t being an ignorant nationalist, I promise. :P A considerate management would space it properly so employees can get their holiday time instead of overtime.

MO’s a much quieter leader than the original hype train, that’s for sure. We also saw some balance changes and content patches less than 2 months ago, so I wouldn’t expect much until January. We’ll just have to accept that we’re coasting to Wintersday and then riding the festival out until next year.

Danikat.8537:

There’s been speculation that there will be an update in November, which obviously won’t be tomorrow since they haven’t announced it, but could be the 22nd or 29th.

If it’s even worth speculation, we probably won’t get it until after Thanksgiving. It’d be foolishly cruel to set out a big patch before a major family holiday. If we’re getting one, it’ll probably be sometime into December.

Amaimon.7823:

Im getting the distinct feeling this topic is oozing with sarcasm..

#backs away slowly#

Oh, oh, please tell me how you unlocked your Detect Sarcasm Mastery. I need it so very much! Map chat is some of the most difficult endgame content.

Nikal.4921:

Ashen.2907:

The nature of the maps in HoT and LS3. I don’t like the vertical, pseudo platforming, nintendo referential, nature of these zones. If I enjoyed playing games where I jump on mushrooms in order to bounce up to capture glowing reward balls…I’d buy some variant of a mario brothers game (or its ilk). I get it, devs grew up on these games. 8 bit nostalgia/fetish is all the rage. Its very hip(ster). Yay.

I have to give a hearty vote for these issues. The HoT platform style environment is largely why I haven’t purchased HoT- even when it was on sale for half price. This is an RPG game, not a platformer, and I really dislike all the platformer elements in this game. Most jumping puzzles (though not all sadly) I can get a port, but when entire zones are set up this way?

The hearkening back to old platformers and Metroidvanias isn’t such a terrible thing, until we realize how limited the execution was. The jumping/verticality isn’t that great because it’s largely unpolished. The effect is even worse with the minigame Adventures, which all feel very stiff in comparison to GW2’s usual combat movement.
The Metroidvania aspect could have been better as well. While we have wallows and other movement tricks that are worth revisiting some zones for their ease of navigation, what they originally ended up as were irritating ways to lock Mastery Points behind ability gates and curb exploration*. Probably one of the most notable offenders is Axemaster during the Verdant Brink night bosses. The Nuhoch stealth detection is vital to that fight, but it’s not even opened until a player touches Tangled Depths. It’s a dissonance that comes from being poorly handled. (And the insta-gib attack should have been based on Itzel poison mastery instead of a stupid can’t-dodge auto-kill.)

*And if we’re adding gripes, I’d almost forgotten one of my major ones for HoT. Too much of the zones were blocked by meta events and their hugelong timers.

maddoctor.2738:

While we are at it, let’s have a poll on mounts, inspections and duels too. There is a range of feelings on those too and loads of constant forum threads around here. But for some reason those are dismissed with the dead horse gif while this one requires a poll.

While my opinion for all three runs from indifferent to opposed, I’d fully support more in-depth assessment of the players’ stances. It would have to go beyond “Do you like me? Circle Yes | No” but I think there would be value in it.

1. Black Lion chests as RNG-within-RNG gambling.
   Quite frankly, it’s despicable and predatory. With the amount of content that could be unlocked with it, and at $1.50+/key, ANet would make more than enough money opening up the faucets a little on their rewards. Especially after the change. So many great options for guaranteed-but-RNG drops, but they didn’t take it in that direction. Instead, we get “seasonal” crap worth 5 silver.
2. A love/hate of “the economy”.
   GW2 has probably the most stable MMO economy on the market. At the same time, the false scarcity produced by certain things leads to a ton of unfavorable outcomes.
   We have currencies and items that border on useless, instead of giving them intelligent sinks or other conversion methods. (Blade shards, Mordrem blooms, keys upon keys, tenebrous crystals, all of the Ascended materials) Cloth and leather are completely out of control, even with new micro-faucets, because sinks were applied far too aggressively.
3. Clock gating.
   Boss rotations, map-wide metas, Dragon Stand…
   I’m not even trying to drag out the poor bloody-and-beaten manifesto, but having to wait 90 minutes for a meta to finish so I can get permission to join the next meta map that last two hours… that’s not encouraging.
4. Lack of attention to armor design.
   Charr player.
   Mostly male characters.
   Enough said. ;_;
5. Incomplete or bugged skills
   Following up on bug reports, not so much. It’s galling that some things remain incomplete (underwater skills, especially Revenant) or go unfixed without so much as a mention (e.g., Honorable Staff’s boon duration). Yes, I realize time is limited, but now the Known Issue Tracker is on the fritz. (I wonder if someone added the Known Issue Tracker to the Known Issue Tracker list…)
6. The 5-Second Rule of stuns.
   A punchy way of saying that CC from enemies is too prevailent. So much so that it devalues Stability. Why have it on your bar when the dino with one attack rips every stack off before he’s done charging? HoT is significantly more guilty of this, but I recall getting Daze-hammered by some guards in EotM too.
7. Overall lazy but “difficult” enemy designs.
   I’m all for nudging up the complexity of encounters. End-game or elsewhere (core Tyria is pretty easy and could use a tweak). But what we got with HoT was more toughness/HP-sponges and amped up damage with little else to show for it. Creatures with a total of one or two attacks and no cooldown that do huge chunks of damage and knockback/stun. That’s not complexity, it’s artifical difficulty and, more importantly, not engaging.
8. Poor scaling
   Not that the scaling is baaad, but it still needs refinement. And anything that requires a group that doesn’t show up, and it hedges out the ability to accomplish goals.
9. Lack of proper map tools.
   It was noticable, but not game-hampering, until HoT. Now, trying to tell what one brown ink blob is versus another and how they coordinate into actual direction borders much more on impossible. That wouldn’t even be as hurtful if we had custom tools, but we’re left with a lackluster map option even though the maps themselves grow more complex. I appreciate that complexity, but I hate the map tools.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

@IndigoSundown.5419

Take the former AP rewards and use them to provide a benefit for the gain of XP post-80.

Interesting suggestion. However does this mean that new players and people who have alts below level 80 won’t make progress on this while leveling? (Tomes and writs might be an issue also if they do progress below 80).

Sounds like it would be, but it’s not too different a scenario than “losing” mastery XP by playing an underleveled character. I say that because that’s how I felt until I hit my mastery cap. Getting to 80 isn’t a huge issue, and most of a character’s lifetime is spent at max level.

I’m digging Indigo’s suggestion.

Ayrilana.1396:

mtpelion.4562:

Ayrilana.1396:

mtpelion.4562:

The +25 is for out of combat travel. Limiting our in combat effectiveness for an out of combat perk is bad game design and should be scuttled.

Luckily players can swap parts of their build before they enter combat.

The fact that a clunky work around exists does not negate the fact that it is bad design.

It’s not bad design because you don’t like it.

It’s not good design because you roll over for it, either.
I’m not willing to accept “perfect imbalance” on this one, and no one with game design experience should accept it.

There should be one, standardized way to obtain an out of combat movement speed bonus. The Enrichment slot idea is actually pretty excellent for it. Right now, it serves very little purpose and exists and an artifact of the older Ascended trinkets. I’m willing to agree that +25% might be a bit much for that slot, but even a +15% does wonders for the otherwise glacial pace that characters walk without it. It was a fault from the very beginning that was never corrected properly. Instead, we got a smear of gimmicks that some-but-not-all classes can use for passive boosts, while others have to utility, trait, or both for an acceptable non-combat movement speed.

And unless a build template can be designed to swap immediately as something tags me into combat, it’s not a solution.

Amaimon.7823:

Ive just hit 20K, and I cant seem to earn any decent amount of AP without it taking years. The 10 a day is really my only reasonable resource left.
Whats worse is, there are many collections and achievements that are a lot of effort, where you rruly feel like you achieved something, and then you get 1-3 ap formit. 1-3?? Thats peanuts. Thats nothing. Thats a drop in the ocean. I think AP should reflect the difficulty or time spend to be more realistic. If a collection is going to take more than 2 weeks, make it worth more 3x 1AP

A fine point to reiterate, yes. AP from permanent sources is just not scaled well to the effort and time it takes to accomplish the achievements. I fully agree with OriOri that we should have permanent rewards with meaningful AP values, and that content should be released steadily, so that AP hunters can feel that accomplishment.

As I’ve said before, dailies do give a somewhat absurd AP reward for tasks that are really simple. At the same time, cutting off the AP flow entirely demotivates from logging in. And to say “go play another game” in response to that is part of the problem. As players do go play other games, the odds of them coming back are even lower than if they just check in once or twice a week. Contact with the game allows/improves up-selling.

The issue goes beyond “AP Cap” and into the realm of AP Revamp. There need to be workflows in place during development to ensure aces and achievers get their form of gameplay by having meaningful recognition for challenging content. Veterans and the daily dedicated players deserve to have a minor reward for doing something more than logging in. We have login rewards, but they’re literally get-on/get-off without interacting at all. No time sunk into it, no time to check on guildies. Dailies as a rewards-sampler spur that extra time in game, which means building/maintaining social connections, playing content, and eventually checking out the gem store.

Part of that reform/revamp is putting kitten in the cap and letting the AP leak out a bit. Not the 10-per-day gusher that the first 15,000 points are. 3 tasks, 3AP. Leaderboard doesn’t have to chase it every day, as was their complaint before, but the trickle of points ought to be sufficient for veterans to continue logging in.

Khisanth.2948:

Rauderi.8706:

But the Leadership runes costing so many drop-only, maybe-you’ll-get-one items, which require a key item to get… that’s just a groin kick. Especially for a zone that requires special permission to get into the One Sacred Map. I’d really like to see a way to use other zone materials to buy the crystalline ore, even if it’s just a limited per day purchase.

Noxious pods give a minimum of 1 Crystalline Ore so there is no maybe. The maybe is only for a chance to get more from each pod.

Unfortunately, that is not consistent with observation. I have opened pods and gotten no ore. And the rate of gain via pods is brutally low, even on a map that’s doing the meta. So needing to open at least 600 pods for one full set is a huge grind. 150 is a much more appropriate number in relation to the effort the other HoT rune sets take.

OriOri.8724:

Tumult.2578:

As I see it now, I have about 5 months left till the cap, and then anet doesn’t want me here anymore.

Way I see it, ANet wants people to actually do something in this game instead of play for 5 minutes and get 10 more AP.

I’d be more inclined to say that ANet wants people to log in at all. Playing is a bonus. No log-in, no contact with the player. No contact, no chance to upsell cosmetics, content bumps, or expansions.

Granted, once players get to logging in, of course ANet wants them to play. That’s increased time commitment that can be tilted toward the upsell. And I don’t even mean that in a sinister way. But if they lose players for any perceived “meh,” there’s a good chance they might not come back.

Healix.5819:

Display the minimum scale on events. Instead of [Group Event] for example, do something like [3+ Group]. When players initially do events in active maps with larger groups, they believe that’s the way. It’s a problem I’ve seen from the very start, where small groups either won’t try or are very hesitant.

Show all (or certain) events on the map, which was an API feature prior to megaservers. It’d be nice to known when a daily event is up or to keep track of the split meta chains in HoT.

Adding on to the combination of the above, display the number of nearby players on the event’s map icon. It would help to let people know where others are, especially with split defense events like night VB and should help with the “no commanders? dead map” attitude.

Improve event scaling to not factor players who aren’t participating. At the very least, stop factoring players who haven’t picked up or turned in anything for collection events, or just tone it down so I’m not having to turn in 10x the amount compared to soloing it.

All of these, please. While I’d prefer scaling to go from minimum-1 to however many players are participating, knowing what’s intended for a “group” event would also be encouraging.

And something ought to be done about the run-ins for event zones. I was doing a 3-man with a hero point, doing fairly well, when the HP-train-zerg showed up. Suddenly, it added four or five level 84 elites, and the lot of us died before the ever-so-gracious commander showed up with forty+ people to finish it.

It is a bit of a sticker shock compared to the other HoT-vendor rune sets. The currencies for each of those is fairly easy to obtain by playing the zone naturally, and it’s not long to get a full set. It’s actually kinda nice.

But the Leadership runes costing so many drop-only, maybe-you’ll-get-one items, which require a key item to get… that’s just a groin kick. Especially for a zone that requires special permission to get into the One Sacred Map. I’d really like to see a way to use other zone materials to buy the crystalline ore, even if it’s just a limited per day purchase.

And also fix Dragon Stand so the timer doesn’t start until the meta has enough people to begin. It’d be so much easier to get players on a fresh map that way.

skullmount.1758:

I would prefer the limit either removed or shifted out every year.

The latter part of the statement is why I recommend the daily cap shift per day. It’s easy enough to code and enforces a soft cap. Definitely not 10/day, but 3/day to represent the three daily tasks needed to complete. Capped players still get to see progression from little tasks, but it’s not over-rewarding the effort either. Leaderboard won’t have to panic for daily AP. The daily still gives 10AP, but the cap shifts slower than that, so daily participation post-cap is once every three days or twice per week. It’d be easy to catch up even after a moderate absence.

Djinn.9245:

Well, thanks for the information. I was waiting for Halloween to end to buy some keys. I guess I’ll be waiting a long time.

Yeah, I held off on the free key I got, but I guess I’ll be waiting even longer.
I’m really hoping ANet starts to make some sense with these gambling boxes. There’s no need to have any of the chests be utterly worthless in order to make money. There are enough useful tools, chances at something huge, and most importantly, a wealth of skin unlocks that could sell those chests, instead of bilking the few people who are big spenders.

Logged onto the forums just for this comment thread. Good, I wasn’t the only one that noticed the timing.

Though, for the bundle/Lich Outfit, did someone report the dynamic cost issue to the bug forum?

penelopehannibal.8947:

Hi,

Certain champs that spawn in the world are tied to the Living World storyline and achievements. Theses champions are fun to play in groups in the beginning when they are first introduced, when many players are enthusiastic to attack them and earn achievement points or progress the story.

However, as time goes on, players who have already done them a few times (in some cases just once!), they grow weary of the difficulty of them, and many of them are now being skipped.

The best example is probably the Mordrem champion in Iron Marches, which is nowadays seldom done as a group to fight it is hard to ask for. Bandit champions across Kryta are also starting to be skipped.

This can be frustrating for some players, especially new players, or ones who haven’t done the achievements yet. So I recommend demoting a few of the ‘event’ champs down to Elite or perhaps Veteran status now, in-line with the lower demand to complete them.

I think this will help new players complete the achievements, and it might also perk some new interest for those who have already experienced them to defeat them again, given that fewer players would be needed.

Thanks.

It’s a good idea in general to have a lot of the content scale appropriately to the size of the group engaging it. Starting content at 3+ when there might not even be 30 people spaced in the entire map (I’ve definitely had Tangled Depths experiences like this) means that challenges aren’t tuned for those who are actually doing the content. So it get skipped.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if champ Defiance bars were better tuned for solo/small groups, because then at least control is an option. But I guess the main point is, there are lots of places where tuning for very solos/small groups would be a benefit for the game.

Voraxas.2391:

A Revenenat without bugs – that would be a pretty decent starting point.

Finishing off underwater skills would be a nice QoL too.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

stale.9785:

Familiar with the Skinner box (rats, not pigeons)

Doh! I wonder where rats turned into pigeons in my brain… hmm…

edit: found it… pigeons also get used in operant chambers. So, it’s rats OR pigeons. Thank you wikipedia!

~EW

You might be thinking of a similar experiment with rats where they were hooked up to electrical stimulation and pressed the button to exclusion of all else, including food.

Thankfully, Black Lion boxes will never ever be rewarding enough for that. :P

The only two racials I consistently use are Shrapnel Mine (for bleed and kiting) and Radiation Field (for wide area AoE damage/poison). Which, now that I think about it, I only do that to replace Thief utilities. Hm.

IndigoSundown.5419:

I have a different observation about the guaranteed wardrobe unlock. It in no way is going to make me want to get keys. Since I have a preference for knowing what I’m buying, the idea of using a key to maybe get an unlock item, from which I’d maybe get something I want has zero appeal. Honestly, I think the unlock is primarily aimed at collection completionists. No matter what, you unlock something you don’t have.

As to the OP’s issue, while I don’t share it, I can understand it. If, as it seems, there must be RNG, at least have a more complete list of possibilities.

It’s the layers of RNG that kill it for me.

1. I might get an item that unlocks something.
2. That unlock might give me something that I want.

Change the first “might” into a “will,” and I’d probably buy keys just to see what unlocks.

I’ve got most of my “really want” stuff anyway, so any unlocks after that fall under the “oh neat” column of stuff. Enough surprise to spur some curiosity without the utter disappointment and emotional deadpan of “oh look, another tome and instant merchant, let me add them to the pile.”

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Behellagh.1468:

Black Lion Chests were ALWAYS from the very beginning, a gem shop sampler with a chance of a higher value gem shop item. That’s why the notion the player base got that somehow they are required to have something of significant value in them is weird to me.

This is the first time in the history of the BL Chests that we know with absolute certainty what drops in the 1st slot as well as which of six items can drop in the 2nd and which of six items can drop in the 3rd. We also know there is a fix chance for a 4th slot with the uncommon/rare/super rare item, from a published list of items, and that account bound dups will transform into keys.

If with all this knowledge you still get annoyed with what you got from opening up X chests, then that’s on you mate.

is it a gem store sampler if it has tomes, bags of crafting mats, festival bags or other non gemstore items in it? If it’s a gemstore sampler then keep it gem store items. Not add low value in game items to our gem purchase.

Underlined part is my other big gripe with the chests, moreso after patch than before. Leveling tomes are only useful if I’m powering an alt, but I get daily rewards for that. Holiday fluffingstuff bags are useless, especially at a singular payout.

If a 125-gem key got me 400-gem worth of random crap, it’d at least simulate value, just not in what I expect to get.

OriOri.8724:

A, much healthier, option would be for ANet to add way more permanent achievements, that give AP more reflective of the effort put into obtaining them. I mean, with LWS2 and HoT the new AP available was extremely limited, almost a pitiful amount really. We need more of those general achievements, that you can work on as you play the game, where you can earn far more than 10AP a day if you work towards it.

Simply increasing the daily AP cap doesn’t solve the problem. It exclusively helps veteran players (which is not healthy),and it could be used as an excuse by ANet to continue giving very little new AP with every release. So far LWS3 has been better than HoT and LWS2 were imo, hopefully they pick up the pace even more.

As much as I agree with this, there’s a certain reality to be faced by understanding that there’s just no room for ANet to really work on this in a meaningful way. They can’t currently scrape together legendary journeys, which means the more practical solution is in something sustainable with few man-hours invested. In this case, it means deleting the cap.

For the feel of the game, I’d rather see more permanent achievements and suitable rewards for the effort invested. (Let’s not forget how terrible Hungry Hal was…) As it looks right now, the AP values of tasks are just lobbed about at random without much consideration of how much time or resources it takes to do them. :\

DianTheJoker.4372:

@Rauderi – if you are feeling cool with getting 1-2 fragments and being unable to unlock the chest that day, a lot others are not.

If I AFK two days in a row at the right time, I can open the chest~

Really though, the only bit I can see as the slightest bit annoying is getting teleported to the forgecauldron while trying to do bank stuff. The range ought to be limited to the Piazza, yes, but it’s not entirely rage-worthy to get caught up in it. It can’t kill you, and if you’re flying during the teleport, you glide right over the cauldron and thumb your nose at the pumpkin-headed yukster.

I’m not against reining in the event range. And /emote range.

Malediktus.3740:

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I don’t care at all about the leaderboard or anyone else’s place on it. I don’t respect (or disrespect) any player because of their AP (what a silly concept). What I want is to be making steady, reasonable daily progess towards each next chest. Because after all, that’s the point of getting AP. It’s reaching the next chest or the next title. If ANet doesn’t give the AP points that allow this, (and they don’t. They’ve been miserly on event AP) then after you reach cap the chests are extremely far between. 10 points a day plus the content points was very reasonable progress, but then ANet decided to favor the completionists who begged for ANet to control them since they couldn’t control themselves. In doing so they affected all the players who can control themselves.

But after the 15k cap was put in the game the dailies were changed to 10 points max. And this max means that the 15k cap is pointless as the dailies themselves are now capped so that completionists have the cap there to keep them from needing to do all dailies.

I think ANet needs to reconsider the 15k cap. The reason it was put in has been removed with the 10 AP daily max and they should also consider that it’s affecting most strongly those who have been the longest, and I could argue, the most loyal players. And maybe a cap that affects your most loyal players isn’t what is good for the game.

People like me collected achievements before achievement reward chests were introduced. They were only added some time AFTER release because a lot of people complained that AP were pointless for them. New chests were added step by step as people reached certain milestones. If I remember correctly I had about 9k AP before the chests were introduced.
So I see no reason why Anet should start catering to people who view AP merely as a reward track. Start seeing them as a tiny bonus for the thousands of hours of dedication to get to the higher AP levels instead of it being a reward track. If you think you run out of achievements ask Anet to add more achievements instead of changing the daily AP nonsense which never should have existed to begin with.

Let’s take off the daily cap and see how “dedicated” a good portion of the leaderboard is. Can’t be bothered to grind the daily AP, then you don’t deserve it. You’re not dedicated enough to the game. Miss a day? Too bad, so sad.

And if one follows the blame chain on long enough, it’s people who kew for “achievement” recognition in the first place that had to be catered to, not the people who saw meaningless internet points as worthless. The game never needed AP, and it certainly doesn’t need a leaderboard for them.

On the one hand, it’s kinda annoying, on the other hand, half the time, he doesn’t say Mad King Says, and I get key parts just for AFKing at the bank. :P

BrotherBelial.3094:

Rauderi.8706:

BrotherBelial.3094:

So the one thing we had to show we where ’old timers" has been taken away, good job I still have my GW2 launch baseball cap………

I don’t. I tried, but Support gave me the brush-off when I tried to reclaim it after the wardrobe shift. I didn’t even care for it that much, it’s just a “I had it when..” for me.

but it was town clothes…..

It was! And I rolled through every character and talked to the Black Lion armor vendor guy with all of them. Never showed up. No festive hat for me…

But I digress.

As many have said about the chests, a step forward (a beautiful step forward), and a step back. I’m still not comfortable dropping real money on keys. Maybe as a Birthday/Christmas present to myself, maybe. If I do, maybe I’ll swing by the thread again and let y’all know what I get. :P

Pedroso.4603:

So much QQ for such trivial topic….

Want to make everyone happy?
Maintain the current cap as a “soft cap” – still rewarding 10 AP/day
When you hit the 15k soft cap, you then start earning 3 AP/day until you reach a new hard cap (20k maybe? that’s roughly 4 more years to reach the hard cap)

You may say “ah, the same problem will eventually happen when ppl hit the 20k hard cap”, well, when it happens, just convert the soft cap to 20k, and increase the hard cap to 25k with 3AP/day

Something like that does solve two major issues with the current setup.

1. Honest opinion, dailies are too rewarding on AP. It wouldn’t even need a second hard cap, because spacing it in 5k chunks would take 4.6 years of dailies to reach the new one. I’d be fine with getting 3/day, as the actual daily rewards are also useful.
2. Removing the cap means that veterans get an opportunity to see some growth. Newer players don’t have to worry about the cap for 4 years at 10/day.

It’d require tweaking how the achievements trigger, but having an infinite achievement for Veteran Daily Completion that gives fewer post-cap AP is probably the best compromise.

Unless you’re looking to reskin your warrior, I don’t see much point in rerolling it. If you want to get comfy with warrior, just pick it up and play, and experiment with all the weapons and trait lines as you explore the world and scoop up hero points. By the time you hit 80, you’ll have enough to fill all the core traits and that opens everything up.

Also, some things to consider, as you’re filling out your build for any class, do you have:
Decent damage?
Condition removal?
Decent toughness/sustain or sufficient blocks/dodges?
Range for when melee heat is too much?
Stun breaks? (sigh…)

A solo roaming/survival build really should have all of those in HoT. Vanilla Tyria let players get away with much higher damage output and Berserker gear, but the jungle is going to take some getting used to.

CMM.6712:

Typing it in is definitely annoying, and not just for the chest.

It’s not much, but at that point, it’s easier to open the trading post and sell it instead of pitching it. 20c, which is laughable, but also an indication of how well keys aren’t selling. (Or that boxes are still dropping too much.)

Small but important change to the Gold/Gem UI.

Precision purchase of gems with gold is a thing, but somehow, not being able to sell a specific number of gems for gold is not. That’s actually pretty unfair to those who buy gems with actual cash, not to mention, with the truncation of funds from gems to gold sales, we’re shorted one of the main reasons to sell gems in the first place. It really needs an update.