Guild Wars 2

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Djinn.9245:

Ayrilana.1396:

There is an excess of 31 Heart of Maguuma mastery points beyond what you need to max all masteries. With each adventure having two mastery points, and there being 15 adventures, this comes out to 30 mastery points total from adventures. You do not have to do adventures to max out your masteries. Of course this means you would then be extremely limited in what else you can do to get them.

So “if you don’t like Adventures, you can still max out Masteries by doing every other game mode in GW2”. Nice choice of play.

Yes, it is a “nice choice” — the word “mastery” suggests that it’s something requiring doing more than the minimum, especially since you can play the entire game without maxing most of the mastery lines. If folks want to restrict themselves to only one game mode, they should expect some limits on the rewards.

I think some people don’t realize how many points are really hidden in the zones and meta events. I did what Adventures I could. Most of them I hated, but I could at least get Bronze (do it for all in a zone, and I think that’s one mastery point), Silver in most, and Gold in some of the easier ones (Wings of Gold, Scrap Yard). But, where I really got rapid growth was in coming back to the maps I was angry at (Tangled Depths, Dragon Stand) and making a conscious effort to do meta-events. A few nights of targeted effort, and I was pretty close to Club 162 membership.
It’s also a really good idea to look up some videos for finding treasure spots and mastery insights, if you’re still down on mastery points. By gamer standards, it’s academically shameless, but I’m not proud. :P
Add in the point infusion from Bloodstone Fen (all of those were reasonably easy), and you should have enough to skip the rest of the Adventures and the inane “perfect runs” of Season 2.5 Living Story.

Going forward, I hope to never see character progression tied to glitchy, gimmicky content like Adventures. Had they been polished and, I’unno, fun, I might have a different opinion. Shove some armor skins, minis, weapon skins, or any of the non-essentials in there, but gating character/account progression behind non-core gameplay is bad form.

chase.2564:

I too would have bought a Silver Fed Salvage-o-matic if I had known it was in the gem store. I was kind of bummed when I found out after that it had been there and I did not notice it.

Copper-fed is so worth it. I find Silver-fed isn’t as much, unless you salvage tons of rares and above. Even then, if you have piles of Mystic Forge Stones, it’s cheaper to make the Mystic Salvage Kit than buying the Silver-fed.
Personally regret getting it, honestly.

Ayrilana.1396:

Retool map limits to spread players out more? So instead of like 1-3 full maps and a couple near empty instances we have 5 maps with barely enough players to complete the meta while also ignoring that people are going to ferry onto maps regardless? I’ll pass.

Again, not reading what was already presented, in the interest of presenting an ‘argument’.

We already know that players will gravitate toward full maps, and they’ll condemn megaserver for putting them elsewhere. If there is no option to hop to the Sacred Map of Meta Completion, they’ll have to stick to another map, and be more likely to have other people on that map.

Exemplary numbers, again:

Assume 161 players.
Assume map cap of 150.
That’s one full taxi map.
And one map with 11 people.
11 people leave the map with no progression.

161 players, reduce cap to 100.
One full taxi map.
One map with 61 players, enough to initiate and succeed at meta.
Room enough for late-comers to join.

161 players, map cap 70
Two full taxi maps.
One map with 21 players, enough to initiate the meta.
Metas all succeed faster due to better scaling.
-or without taxiing:
Two well-populated maps (50-60)
One smaller population map (20-40)
All can achieve meta without hitting the map cap, no need to taxi.

161 players, map cap at 200
Technical limitation reached. Everyone gets in, lag kills everyone, meta fails.

Not being an employee, I’m not privy to the actual numerical limitations and algorithms, so it’s all conjecture anyway, but what does become apparent is that the smaller discreet units are better able to handle population chunks. This could be even more apparent if new maps open after some maps soft cap.

Not to say that all maps would need this sort of treatment, though. Dragon Stand is unique in how its meta works, so it needs special consideration in how the server treats its population cap.

Ayrilana.1396:

Megaservers in itself work just fine. It’s just that players got themselves accustomed to map hopping which then became the norm. I hate that we lost the server communities but it does successfully put players onto maps. Now I would personally prefer that they raise the threshold before new instances are created though.

That’s the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Just tossing out numbers for an example. Given:
115 players for a map population
100 player map cap
If the Sacred Map is full, that’s a distribution of:
100 players on a meta map
15 players on a dead map

Lower that cap to 70, and the same number of players distributes to:
70 players on a meta map
45 players available on a second meta-capable map
And with scaling the way it is, both maps get better boss scaling for faster kill times.

I don’t know the actual thresholds, obviously, but it’s a case of splitting up the zerg, not mushing more into one group.

I’ve always been able to fill maps within 30 minutes of reset. If you can come to the map 30 minutes prior to reset, and still not get a map, you’re probably doing something wrong like not using the LFG.

“Have you not read by previous posts completely?” You’re deliberately doing this. -_-
I already said I use LFG. I already said why it doesn’t always work. Please read other peoples’ posts in their entirety before responding.

No. That’s not what I’m saying about the LFG. Refer back to my statement again that I see no issues with the dragon stand events themselves.

The events themselves are fine, yes. Being able to start a map with only 12 people is actually fairly generous. Ruddy shame that LFG can’t even farm that many in a reliable capacity. It is, sadly, our only approach as players, because ANet seems to have a blind eye turned toward their metrics, and they seem unwilling to re-tool map limits to spread players out more.

If nothing else, let’s drive the innovation with some better ideas. There’s no excuse to force map cycling strictly to an specific hour. That’s just for convenience and predictability. So that the code works.
But what if, like with world bosses, a guild could hop into an unstarted map, slam down a flag, and restart the map timer so they can post a guild run to LFG? No need for waiting for the map with 35 minutes left to uselessly time out, but use the active instance and actually do something with it.

tl;dr:

• Lower Dragon Stand population caps
• Give Guilds the ability to restart inactive maps
• [Add other ideas to the list]

Ayrilana.1396:

Megaserver works just fine if players don’t map hop.

But they do.
If megaserver tech can’t help account for the fact that players taxi, then it’s failed in its job. If players are getting to pick which map they end up on, then ANet ought to find a way for megaserver tech to resurrect GW1 districts. It’s what players have been wanting anyway.

LFG works if you do it as the map resets which is what I had said. The longer you wait, the less likely you will be able to fill a map as people will stop looking.

And if I can’t be there right at that exact moment when The Sacred Map of Our Taxiing Lady is visiting Dragon Stand to benevolently grace it with Her presence? Then I’m locked out for two solid hours, LFG or no. I’ve tried LFG after map reset and gotten zero results, just like last night and many nights like it. Stop clinging to this pollyanna notion that LFG just magically generates players who will run content.

We started maps 30 minutes after reset and were still able to beat MoM. All it takes is a little initiative.

I can show up 30 minutes before reset and still come away without a group. So I’m supposed to flail around doing nothing for an hour and expect to maybe, finally, complete an event?

I don’t particularly see an issue with the Dragon Stand events. That’s what I’m primarily arguing about.

Not really, no. Your claim is “LFG is the bestest, prettiest way of experiencing all content ever, including Dragon Stand.” Which is only true in the sense that it’s the best we have to limp along and gather participants in a slim 10-minute window, once every two hours. Otherwise, it’s “gg, have fun waiting to have fun.”

The most frustrating thing is, I like what Dragon Stand is trying to do. The Mouth fight is a crazy little ride that I can enjoy, if I can ever get past the part where the do-nothing Pact scraps can stop waiting for the 12 chosen ones to show up and start the show.
But, all the boring waiting and taxi finagling has many players tired. They find the events and rewards not worth the effort of forcefully prying their way into the one good map, so if they miss that, nearly zero chance of participating at all. So instead, once they have the rewards they need, they leave it behind forever, much like they do with Adventures.

I’m.. not sure anymore. I suppose the way dailies designed keeps me at least somewhat motivated. I still have plenty of check-boxes to fill out, tons of collections and long-term goals. I do love my characters and having tons of different builds and styles at my disposal.

I suppose I’m cooling down on MMOs in general, though. I’m hoping ANet will finally get its act together and design events/classes/enemies in a way that isn’t lazy or discouraging, the way that HoT hit us.

Ayrilana.1396:

Razor.9872:

Ayrilana.1396:

Can’t they just re-plant him and see if he grows back?

Trahearne is not Groot…as far as we know…

Of course not. People actually liked Groot.

>.>
Ouch.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

Ayrilana.1396:

deesbaby.8726:

Ayrilana, you can’t progress on the map at all when the map is dead, even after a reset the map you can’t go beyond the WP’s as they are blocked so your still screwed lol

Put up a LFG?

Did that. 30 minutes in advance. Did that too.

No squad? People leave.
LFG size too small? People leave.
Other map taxiing? People leave.

“Put up LFG” is not the catch-all answer to a broken system, and it’s particularly lazy and flippant as a response.

It’s not a broken system. That entire map relies on a substantial number of players working together in each lane. That is how that particular map was designed. Just because you don’t like that doesn’t mean that is is broken. Especially if any issues are coming from the players themselves where they leave maps with no commander tags and so on.

LFG is very much an adequate solution to you problem. You lack the people. LFG is used to bring players onto maps. This is what we have been doing since megaservers. Also, because you disagree with it doesn’t mean that the response was lazy and flippant.

Just because you say it isn’t broken doesn’t mean it isn’t broken. That’s denial. If the megaserver can’t justly sort out people into a map when they rightly show up for a meta-event, there is a problem.

And LFG fails, as I already described. Therefore, not the magical solution you make it out to be. Clinging to that insistence is indeed lazy. “It works for me, so it works for everyone” is utterly short-sighted is callous an unhelpful in a forum.

Unfortunately, this is an issue that needs ANet intervention to resolve, and it’s a highly complicated, technical problem. Probably complicated enough that they’re not interested in cleaning up the logistical clusterbomb involved, even though it might advance their megaserver algorithms for the whole game.

Sadly, Dragon Stand doesn’t even require that many people, if the starting ‘event’ is any indication. Twelve people total to get it started. If I’m not on the Sacred Dragon Stand Taxi Map, I don’t even see more than three other people, so it’s impossible to organize anyway.

I want to agree, but there’s still some critical issues with the time-gates, etc. And it feels like it gets worse the deeper in you go.
Verdant Brink I generally like, though. Off-hours access for those with the masteries and insider knowledge, and otherwise not a huge pain to get around.
Auric Basin has a few time-limited spots (and how bad it sucks to walk out of Gilded Hollow at the wrong time…), but overall, most of the map is open. Also some of the best music for the expansion. Thumbs-up.
Tangled Depths mostly suffers from the lazy, unreadable minimap. Learning my way around, I definitely get some good use out of Wallows. Catching event chains can help as well, but it all sort of starts with finding the central waypoint buried in the zone. Honestly, if I had my own in-game mapping tools, Tangled Depths might actually be fun to get around.
Dragon Stand could be a better map for so many players, if we were ever allowed into it. The “LFG exactly 11 minutes before the event starts and taxi in, get dead, revive in the one map that will actually accomplish anything” requirement really puts me off from trying, and it’s made worse by the 2-hour cycle. Since ANet opened the map more back in April, it’s much better to just roam and do map completion off hours.

So, I kinda like HoT maps after getting used to them, but it’s a huge emotional cost of entry to start caring. And the toll stays high because of the not-so-little bits that needle at my resolve.

Ayrilana.1396:

deesbaby.8726:

Ayrilana, you can’t progress on the map at all when the map is dead, even after a reset the map you can’t go beyond the WP’s as they are blocked so your still screwed lol

Put up a LFG?

Did that. 30 minutes in advance. Did that too.

No squad? People leave.
LFG size too small? People leave.
Other map taxiing? People leave.

“Put up LFG” is not the catch-all answer to a broken system, and it’s particularly lazy and flippant as a response.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Rauderi.8706:

Now if they’d learn from Heart of Thorns and stop making world events on 1 week rotation timers

Fixed that for you.

Gaww, it’s not that bad. :P I do appreciate that they’re releasing tiny content every few weeks. I don’t appreciate that it’s not something I can jump into without horrible design issues in the way.

But I’m off topic. Spooky glider thing for sale! Go buy it if you’re evil.

Randulf.7614:

No, because it’s not a glider I like at all

Ty

2spooky4me, but I appreciate it’s on sale by itself. Glad to see ANet’s learning from the bundling backlash.

Now if they’d learn from Heart of Thorns and stop making world events on 3-hour rotation timers (looking at you Current Events), I’d be much happier.

If they go back to fix it, I hope they update it for the Charr as well. The clipping is absolutely out of control all over the head (ears, chin, etc), and the toe-claws go right through the belts of the shoes. If not for that, I would’ve bought it already.

DoctorDing.5890:

We complain a lot but actually the game is in a pretty good place right now.

We don’t complain, we highlight areas for improvement.
It’s like an on-going assessment review with helpful commentary (and frequent whinging like six-year-olds).

Really though, overall, I’m thankful for all the quality of life improvements (next stop, a better character screen!) and a generally pleasant community. And for a game with solid core mechanics that I’m eager to see grow in the future.

Lyp Sao.1375:

Rauderi.8706:

Lyp Sao.1375:

and crafting profession level

That might be a bit harder to sort, but it’d also be useful. Best indicators we have now are the crafting icons below each character.

Or extend the crafting icons with Noob / Master / GrandMaster symbols

I could see having a colored icon or a colored circle behind it, based on what the crafting level is.
Blue for Fine tier, 1-75
Green for Masterwork tier, so around 125
Yellow for when Rares open up
Orange for Exotic crafting
Pink for Grandmaster/Ascended at 500.

While I have a ton of characters, I know who my four crafters are, so it’s not a huge deal for me, but it’d be a relatively small and visually easy way to help players with lots of craft-leveled characters know which ones are worth using for crafting needs.

Lyp Sao.1375:

and crafting profession level

That might be a bit harder to sort, but it’d also be useful. Best indicators we have now are the crafting icons below each character.

It’d be nice if PageUp and PageDown buttons helped scroll the list.

Or perhaps redesign the character select screen entirely, and model it after a MOBA layout. (Can we fit the 60+ character slots in that space? Hm.)
We don’t need the character so prominently displayed, and to be honest, anything bigger than an Asura ends up partially cut off anyway.

So, I drew up (literally) a proposal. Sadly, in MS Pain(t), because I’m not near my editing tools and wouldn’t be good enough for a full-color mock-up anyway. Forgive the lack of pixels, but as a bonus, enjoy added sort features and an on-screen daily notice!

Dinks.2478:

Or maybe something to do with all of these useless 3rd and 4th year dye things.

Not 100% useless. If you have all of them that are on offer, a) wow you put some effort in, b) pick a favorite color and salvage it. Won’t get too much for it, but at least it’s something.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Wish in one hand, spit in the other, and see which gets filled first.

~EW

Instructions unclear. One hand soggy with gross stuff, other still empty. Currently using pixie dust as proxy for wishes, but is currently too tasty. Now both hands are covered in gross stuff.

I lost…
an evening of not playing Guild Wars 2, because the servers went down while I was at work. :P

Hesacon.8735:

I had to do Not So Secret for Astalaria III. I was very irate by the time I finished it.

Astralaria requires..
G’dangit, after the diving achievement, I swore never again. -_-

On topic, it’s been bantered about many times before, and my stance doesn’t change. Minigames should not be blocking core progression, especially behind getting gold medals on obnoxious content.

Actually, to make a list, [Mastery points|Hero points|fun] should not have been tied to:

• Group content (Hero champions, Octovine, Tangled Depths/Dragon Stand metas)
• Long waits (Verdant Brink, Tangled Depths, Dragon Stand, 90% of the Current Events…)
• Minigames that do not reflect class/build mechanics (We put a lot of effort into our characters and would like to actually play them)
• Minigames with cheap gimmicks, especially when those cheap gimmicks rely on specific masteries
• Minigames that are poorly tuned and heavily ping-dependent

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Paulytnz.7619:

Justine.6351:

They cant really add anything serious to the game regarding mini jennahs now because people have been deleting them. It would be insane crying.

This. I have deleted 13 a couple of years ago, just imagine the outcry!

I don’t have to — we’ve seen it for other perceived “slaps to the face”.

Nothing done: whinging
Something done: different whinging
-Signed, every MMO ever

It’d be nice to at least get a statement saying “We don’t plan to do anything with all those Jennahs, you can bury them in Orr for all we care,” or “Rejoice, for your long-held Jennahs can now be traded at the Birthday Vendor for random minis!”

Mostly just a pleasant musing, really. I’d like to not have to destroy something when my newer characters reach their first year.

Warrior tends to be pretty forgiving for first-timers. Necromancer can be fairly forgiving as well, but it’s more difficult to feel like you’re “doing” something with them. I couldn’t decide on a build until much later in my GW2 experience. If you’re into pet classes, Ranger can give a smidgen of the WoW-hunter experience (sort of).

Elementalist and Engineer are some of the more high skill/high reward cap characters, if you’re confident in your MMO skills.
Guardians are generally fairly desirable in groups, though I find them a tad squishy for a heavy armor class. Low HP, high damage mitigation/regen.
Revenant is a solid choice, though it needs some more polish. Legendary Assassin stance is your friend on a Rev.
Thief is your typical rogue-thing: high burst, decent evasion, squishy. Much more active an experience than most MMO thief types.

I suppose what I’m saying is that most classes are decent, depending on what your play style to be. :P

As for guilds, start here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/community/lookingfor

But also do a few Google searches for GW2 guilds. There should be a few aggregate sites you can cruise.

I keep waiting for a Jennah-devourer or some MF recipe. :|

OriOri.8724:

Rauderi.8706:

lokh.2695:

In all honesty, at this point where I don’t think that they’ll remove the cap. I’d be a happy camper if I got an Achievement for reaching the cap, maybe 25 or 50 AP, and a title to show off that I reached the cap.

Ooh, we could have an infinite Daily Cap Completer. Finishing a daily award while at the cap gives 3 permanent AP. Then there’s no need to raise the cap, progression is still possible, but at a more manageable/slower rate than a blazing 10AP/day. While I’m grateful for it, it always felt a bit much for doing a few easy dailies.

That is literally the exact same thing as removing the cap. You can’t not remove the cap and still give people AP once they reach it.

The idea was intended as a compromise. Personally, I’d rather the cap just be gone. If that means ANet clips AP acquisition, I don’t mind either way. If I want more AP to get a reward chest, like say I’m 50 points shy and can’t be asked to wait, I know where the achievement panel is. As it is, it’s currently nearly 2 months of dailies per reward chest, which isn’t a terrible loyalty reward.

Linken.6345:

You mean to get ogre, krait and the like?

I wasn’t thinking of it as a way to get specific ones, just as a way to promote lesser gear into higher gear of the same type. If that nets a player a skin they don’t already posses (or a precursor) that’s a bonus.

mtpelion.4562:

I’d like to see Luck Essence be used to guarantee your chance of a rarity promotion when using the Mystic Forge.

For example, normally if you were to toss:
1. Masterwork Weapon
2. Masterwork Weapon
3. Masterwork Weapon
4. Masterwork Weapon
into the Mystic Forge, you’d have a 20% chance to get a Rare Weapon back.

If my idea were implemented, then if you toss:
1. Masterwork Weapon
2. Masterwork Weapon
3. Masterwork Weapon
4. 250 Exotic Essences of Luck
into the Mystic Forge, you’d have a 100% chance to get a Rare Weapon back.

Love the idea, but maybe a 250 stack is a bit much, especially for a Rare.
Masterwork→Rare, 10 Exotic luck
Rare→Exotic, 50 Exotic luck

Hm. I feel like this might put a run on Ecto for luck salvaging.
Which brings to mind something else I’d been considering. A sort of Ecto alternative for when Rares/Exotics don’t drop Ecto. It’s bloody infuriating. So, I was thinking there ought to be a similarly valuable material that aids in escalating weapon types. For now, I’ll call it Not-Ecto.

The idea being we have a new ‘currency’ that plays on some of the older ones without being too easily convertable:

1 Masterwork weapon/armor
10 Philosopher Stones (1 Spirit Shard)
10 Exotic Essence of Luck
5 Not-Ecto
→ Random Rare of that type
The cost isn’t too bad here. 1 Spirit Shard, roughly 20 salvaged items, and 5 salvaged Rare+ that don’t pay out in Ecto. So it has limits.

1 Rare weapon/armor
5 Mystic Crystals (3 Spirit Shards)
50 Exotic Essence of Luck
25 Not-Ecto
→ Random Exotic of that type
It’d be a decent enough Luck sink, and by the time you’ve shoveled 25+ Rares down the Toilet, you’d normally have gotten some Exotic anyway.

lokh.2695:

In all honesty, at this point where I don’t think that they’ll remove the cap. I’d be a happy camper if I got an Achievement for reaching the cap, maybe 25 or 50 AP, and a title to show off that I reached the cap.

Ooh, we could have an infinite Daily Cap Completer. Finishing a daily award while at the cap gives 3 permanent AP. Then there’s no need to raise the cap, progression is still possible, but at a more manageable/slower rate than a blazing 10AP/day. While I’m grateful for it, it always felt a bit much for doing a few easy dailies.

Malediktus.9250:

They should delete AP from dailies and monthlies and double AP from all permanent achievements. It was a stupid idea to give dailies/monhtlies AP to begin with.
So its good there is a cap for daily AP very least, preserves a tiny bit of prestige for the highest AP rewards.

Nah. If the AP isn’t attainable anymore, it should be deleted and the achievements associated with them should be considered legacy achievements. Or, as WoW called them, Feats of Strength. Keep the titles, but scuttle the AP.

Also, periodically increase the cap for the veterans. Not enough to keep pace with dailies (300/month might be too much) but an extra 1000/year would be considerate.

Djinn.9245:

General Health.9678:

Pretty sure that if you max the tyria mastery lines you get spirit shards in core tyria when you level. So it’s also gated in core, not sure why we’re fixated on HoT.

Cause a lot of people aren’t leveling in core Tyria anymore?

There’s still dailies, those avoiding parts of HoT’s hero challenges, champ trains, Silverwastes, world completion, etc. Yeah, people still do old-Tyria content too.

But I’m finding that my experience bar is a bit bugged. I’ll loop a level, but the bar doesn’t clear, so I’m not sure if I’m actually getting shards. (Have well over a thousand, so I’m not hurting for them, but still..)

With HoT being a thing, I kinda miss being able to melee things. :|

Obtena.7952:

AliamRationem.5172:

Obtena.7952:

You don’t seem to understand the difference between implementing something different and reverting back to something that was something already done.

Zoltar MacRoth.7146:

According to you. To others, iterative developmental improvements in response to changing needs are the sign of a healthy application.

Except we aren’t talking about iterative developmental improvement here because going back to giving shards without unlocking masteries is simply going back to the way it was prior to the change. There is no improvement here; they spent resources to get exactly zero …

so yes, there is no strawman; the idea they go back to what they did before is rather ridiculous and DOES have a very strong business element to it because business don’t take lightly to wasting their resources. Furthermore, defending that change as an iterative developmental improvement is disingenuous.

I may have missed where anyone asked that we go back to the way it was prior to the change. Why would anyone ask for no reward from post-cap experience after a reward system was put in place?

There WAS rewards for capping experience … spirit shards. That’s what the whole thread is talking about. Am I in the twilight zone here or something?

Some people started after HoT. True story.
For those people getting anything, including XP at all, after mastery cap is new.

Zephic.3075:

The White Mantle must have one of the best shotput teams in the world. I can’t even see them fire and I get knocked off my glider constantly. Sometimes even after landing and going behind some rocks, I still get hit because the heat-seeking rocks still have a lock on me.

Are we sure these guys are human? They are more like mobile missile turrets.

Engi player (sometimes) here. Would like next elite spec to be White Mantle Knight so I can have 20k range turrets with knockdown and homing.

Given that some maps are heavily meta-dependent, especially the HoT zones, it’d be a huge boon to the players to be able to re-sort themselves into maps that are doing them. Megaserver does a fine enough job on low-pressure sorting, but the moment a guild wants to organize Teq/TT/Shatterer or someone wants to participate in Dragon Stand without getting dumped into an abandoned map, the whole thing falls apart.

ANet listens. It’s ANet communicating that’s sparse.

And, honestly, with the snotty elitist toxicity and uncontrolled ragebabies, there’s not much content to actually analyze for their design notes. Nothing in a hate-fueled diatribe is worth sifting through.

It’s actually rare that the community embraces an idea enough to be considered reasonable consensus for moving forward.

zakuruchi.4086:

Hm.. strangely, the last few times I do DS, the smoothest runs are the ‘late start’ runs. I park one of my alts at DS, and when I log in, it’s 1:30 left on the timer and the meta just started, comms are still organizing. I just join the late run hoping to just grab some nox pods without really hoping to finish the meta. Surprisingly, the late run finish relatively smoothly, taking 40 mins or so till MoM dead and no blighting tower reset required.

Since then I somewhat noticed that from my last 10 DS runs or so, the late runs usually takes around 45-1 hour, while the ones that start on the mark usually finish at 1 hour or so. It’s also usually less drama and finger pointing on the late runs. Not sure why this is the case. Perhaps people bringing their A-game because of the tighter time constraint?

Point is, if there are enough people hanging around in your instance of DS and just spamming to join a full map, its better to organize with what you have and do a late start run on your instance. Most of the time you still have enough time to finish the run anyway. Even if you just finish the escort phase, the nox pods near each WP makes a decent consolation prize.

Thanks for the perspective. It has me thinking, if I just put up an LFG for “Empty DS map, taxi in” if people would actually come looking. Not a commander though, so I don’t think I can squad that way. Hm.

Harper.4173:

The lore could have been just as rich regardless of what races we could or could not play. This is not an argument.

It is so. Nyeh.
Also, arguing against something that has already happened and cannot be reversed seems like something that’s actually “not an argument”.
Seriously, what’s the action item you’re proposing with this hypothetical?

GW1:EOTN had rich asura, norn and charr lore without the PC being either of those races. Parts of the story were specifically fixed on these races and there was a very lore-rich narrative there.
In a way I feel it was much more interesting to experience these races as the odd one looking in. They felt somehow unique and more interesting back in GW1 particularly because you couldn’t be a part of them. Being able to make a character of that race feels kinda odd to me.

But the PC is still an outsider. The lore can build, yes, but it’s deeper by having the character experience it directly.

A human-only choice of playable races doesn’t mean the other races don’t exist lore-wise – that they can’t have stories or meaningful impact. It just means they would have an easier time as developers making skins.

And yes – having fewer races to put armor on means that you could make MORE armor but also better quality armor. We’re not getting either at this time.

Quality armor starts in the design phase. The concept phase. Considering the number of questionable items that have actually been released, I’d say the concept phase is experiencing some failures. No amount of manhours invested on the execution on bad concepts is going to produce results. Three quality armors that I will actually use means much more than twelve lip-curling, shoulder-cringing armors that are more easily produced. Those twelve armors take the same time and effort as the three really-awesome ones.

Doubt I would have gotten into GW2 if it were nothing but boring human things. The lore is much richer for the variety. I can just hope they’ll get around to advancing the other races in storyline now that Mordy’s deaders.

And, while I’m having trouble finding “good” skins, that’s not a fault of the development cycle and needing to fit several races. It’s the fault of buttcapes and chainmail skirts and too many armors looking similar to one another or just ranging in bad-to-godsawful. It’s looking at half of the outfits that came out in the past year and wincing, because bird-shoulders, junk plate armor, and boob wings. And if there are numerous “good” skins for an armor weight, they don’t dye the same way or their gloss makes them different, so the lauded mix-and-match ideal just gets more difficult anyway.

I don’t want more armor skins, I want better and more coherent armor skin design.

So what’s more active in fishing than
jumping in the water and skewering your fish with a spear!
?

Now if tuna would drop some loot, I could make sushi~

Sartharina.3542:

Rauderi.8706:

The one that stole a tank when he was drunk, he’ll do.

… that would be you.

…which means there are no interesting NPC Norn.
Wow, that’s sad.

Oh well, more room in the party for another Charr for salad-killing.

Evil Seabass.5214:

Dragon Swatch explained:

To be fair, that’s a really kittenin’ watch. Kinda want that as a glove skin to wear while I’m fighting the other dragons. As a warning.

Silmar Alech.4305:

I don’t feel the core Tyria mastery points are worse than the HoT mastery points, because you can do all of the core Tyria mastery points with the help of other players. Do them with your guild, do them with your friends, ask for help in the open world: there is always some mesmer portal ready if you play together with people.

But with the HoT mastery points that are locked behind the adventures, no one is able to help you. You MUST do them ALONE. No chance to get help from your fellow players. This is the worst thing ever in a MMO that is designed to play together with your fellow players.

It’s frequently worse with other players around. Scrap Yard is probably the more prominent example. Solo, it’s probably the easiest Gold you can get. When it’s a Daily Adventure spot, it’s blood, death, and toxic chaos all over.
Or Shooting Gallery, where I spent a quarter of my time trying to wiggle around a Disney’s Frozen wannabe’s behind as she constantly blocked my line of sight.

AliamRationem.5172:

I’m on the only open instance of the map, guaranteed by the fact that I let the dragon kill me – who sticks around for that, right?

Do you guys have a similar experience or am I just experiencing ridiculous luck when I do it this way?

If I recall right, I’ve seen large groups doing absolutely nothing, sitting around at the entrance while the timer ticks down. I think they will, on occasion, intentionally wait to get dragon-murdered so they’re on the map at reset.

AliamRationem.5172:

Oh, so I’m lazy because I’ve never seen a mount thread before and replied to one on the forums before doing an exhaustive search for any potential “dead horses”?

Thank you for your judgment on WoW players. As a former WoW player, I feel right at home with the degree of rudeness you display to total strangers on the forum. Did you used to play as well?

And picking up on your disdain for players like myself…

Look, bud. I get that you think I’m encroaching on YOUR game, but drop the attitude. It’s unnecessary. I made a suggestion not realizing it was such an emotionally charged issue. I apologize for peeing in your cornflakes. Forget I said anything.

Sheesh! So sensitive around here!

Some people are just rude around here. Try not to let that shade your opinion on the community in general.

And if you did try to search the forums, you might have made the mistake (through no fault of your own) of using the in-forum search tool, which is broken crap. :P
See, what you needed to do was a Google search:
site:forum-en.guildwars2.com mounts

That would lead to the huge mount thread as the top link. It has reasons that range from “wah no WoW things in my GW2” to “concerns about execution and system balance”. It’s a wide range and a logical/emotional topic.

Personally, I don’t care for mounts in GW2, except maybe for the occasional toy item, but PvE could really benefit from some travel speed equalization. Then again, I’d lob money at a proper Charr road rover or Asuran hoverboard, so my position isn’t so immutable.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Been saying the same thing, Rauderi. For quite a while. But others keep telling me otherwise. And, once again, that’s another topic. . . .

Eheh, my previous post may have been a bit salty. I was looking forward to doing Dragon Stand paths for exploration and the last few mastery points I need to finish my non-raid masteries.

It’s really discouraging, though. I did all the right things: showed up early, scouted LFG, joined a squad. That squad was on another map, which was full.
But, making one’s own squad goes as follows: make squad, people join, people see it’s not the huge meta map, people leave, map shard stays empty. I’m not sure I could wish for GW1’s hero system any harder than with Dragon Stand.

Perhaps?

Something to point out, Bloodstone Fen might be dragging lv80 players from other zones at the moment.

Unfortunately, the best advice I can give is to use the LFG panel ( https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Looking_For_Group ) and check Open World events for Tangled Depths squads. Can’t promise anything, but unless you can drag a sizable guild out there to cover the lanes, it’s the most likely way you’ll find players doing it.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

It may be moot. When the new maps for Living World come out, and the next expansion, most of the Heart of Thorns maps will be dead regardless. But . . . if they make some radical changes . . . maybe it’ll survive, but I’m doubtful.

Dragon Stand is already almost dead. The main reason?

Only one megamap gets in. Everyone else gets screwed. ANet needs to fix the population problem.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The biggest problem, OP, is that changing either the time gate or the tradeability has economic implications. Re-balancing the sources and sinks and updating the item flags takes attention from other aspects of the game.

I’m against gating in principle — I don’t like the devs making decisions for me about where to go or what to craft. However, once those gates are in place, it’s not ‘cheap’ to remove them.

The question isn’t: is it bad that celestial stats are affected by both gating and binding? (Yes, of course it’s frustrating.) The question is: how important is it to change? How often does anyone craft it? How many people use it? How much better will their experience be if ANet changes things? And then compare that to how much effort it takes to do it well.

tl;dr I’d love it if ANet had never gated or bound the mats involved; I’d welcome the change if they made it. I just don’t think it’s worth it to us for ANet to worry about it.

All very good considerations. I can easily say that I don’t make Celestial gear every day. Or even every month. The node in my home instance will randomly spit a charged quartz at me, so I usually just save those for when I finally need them. Mostly, I’m just selling quartz on a bull market and getting a good chunk of change for it. And a 500 stack in reserve means I’m not hurting for it.

I’m tentative about saying charged quartz should be tradeable, but I support the notion. Part of the economic value in time-gating is providing value in scarcity and convenience. It’s the same with the refined Ascended materials, so I think it might be equally safe to do with quartz.

Saw a Charr warrior in some crazy colors. Kind of eye-cringing, until I noticed the weapon and name. A hammer-slinger named Andy Warmaul.
I giggled.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

tl;dr current dailies are just about the best they’ve ever been. I wouldn’t like to see us go back to the old ways or old choices.

Overall, I’d agree. With an asterisk.

PvP and WvW choices are fantastic. And getting the daily reward by participating in a mix has been a stellar idea.

What qualifies as PvE is very broad, and some items on the rotation list need adjustment. And I’ll never not push for some of these. :P

• Zone event completion (which is very contentious and makes for poor gameplay) should at least become Region event completion to thin the zerg.
• Daily specific boss should shift to just Daily Boss Victory. PvP/WvW dailies can be completed at any time, but waiting up to 3 hours just isn’t good design for a daily. One either has to linger or interrupt play time to participate in those events.
• Activity needs to be ejected from the rotation. It doesn’t fit core PvE gameplay.

That aside, I love that jumping puzzles were added to the rotation. I’ve gotten to see so much more of old Tyria that way.

As a whole, the daily system is a huge step forward from the past, and I hope there is no need to change it beyond a few minor details.