Guild Wars 2

When you say “suit,” Vegeta, I assume you mean individual armor skins?

That’s not going to happen, unfortunately, because armor skins of different weights generally aren’t compatible with each other, for reasons to do with the way the character models are set up. Converting hat town clothes to armor skins is one thing, but it simply wouldn’t work to make, say, the Leather Hoodie into a standalone chest piece.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

Good for now and in the future. \o/

If that’s the case, GammaBreaker, I’ve never heard anyone mention it. I can’t seriously imagine the basic town clothes being more clip-inducing than the Mad King outfit or Wintersday outfit.

I used to occasionally use Elementalist conjured weapons in (original-style) town clothes for fun, since town clothes didn’t disable skills 8-10, or bundle-based skills. That’s just a subset of the full range of animations, but I don’t see how they’d clip any worse than other outfits or armor.

Behellagh.1468:

Redenaz.8631:

I’m…not sure what you’re talking about, Behellagh. I think you might be misunderstanding me. :\

I’m quoting that blog post to indicate that it said nothing about rearranging sequences. (Assuming the Fear storyline hasn’t been removed, and has just been shuffled / lost in the journal.)

Oh sorry then, thought you were complaining about the story/chapter in general and somehow utterly misunderstood the blog post.

Now I’ve never done the PS at those levels yet but does this dev post help at all?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Did-I-loose-my-story-progression/first#post4383909

Unfortunately, no. That dev post sorta-explains why the story sequences have been rearranged (although that introduces its own continuity errors,) but it doesn’t say anything about story sequences being removed entirely. (Which causes still more continuity errors, as well as shortening the personal story.)

There are positives to this update that are getting totally drowned out by the negatives. Rightly so, because some of the negatives are pretty lousy, but it’s good to appreciate the positives as well.

This has been bugging me since they changed it, and I’m very glad to see it fixed! It makes items make a lot more sense, especially when linking them to chat.

I’ve been wanting this since they revamped town clothes.

Frankly, no one likes the tonics. They’re even more narrow and unfriendly to use than the town clothes were to begin with, and seeing as town clothes got the boot as a system, that tells you something about how terrible town clothes-as-tonics are.

You can’t dye them, you can’t mix them, you can’t fight in them. And you can’t wear them for more than fifteen minutes without reapplying them. And they take up inventory space. And only one character can use them at a time.

I have nothing positive to say about them, except that Anet offered refunds for the pieces that got the tonic treatment. Which, in the case of the default town clothes (which I rather liked,) means no upside at all.

1. Fans react negatively to Feature Pack.
2. PC Gamer reports on how negatively fans on the forum / reddit react to Feature Pack.
3. Fan posts PC Gamer report on the forum.
4. Fans learn that they’re reacting negatively and the circle is complete.

A mixed pack, then—one with some genuine improvements, but hampered by potentially off-putting systems. Personally, I’m most interested to see how the balance tweaks change the game’s PvP, and whether it finally makes certain classes (like the poor, previously neglected Ranger) a more viable option. But, as someone who’s been toying with the idea of creating a new character, I’m not thrilled by the prospect of a more simplified progression. Expect more detailed impressions when I’ve had a chance to fully explore the new systems.

Emphasis mine.

I think this Feature Pack deserves criticism, and this impression isn’t optimistic about it, but let’s wait for the actual review before you start holding it up as a death sentence.

Lasur Arkinshade.4107:

We need the Greatest Fear story arcs back, we need the story steps back in their original order, and we need it fast.

Heck, even if it’s not fast, I’d at least want some explanation as to why these changes were made, and what the developers think of the continuity errors.

I might disagree, but with changes like this, I’m interested into what kind of thought went into them, and seeing that someone did at least weigh the pros and cons.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

You claim to have a 2-week release schedule and put out content faster than any other mmo… yet this is only true for 4 weeks, then a 12 week break…How is that different from any other MMO?

When was the most recent use of that advertising line? They did that for a while, and then they’ve been reasonably clear about communicating when new updates were coming out or being delayed for most of this year, first with the end of LS1, then with LS2’s releases and the feature pack. If they’re still touting the 2-week release schedule in advertising, that’s not good, but if they’re not using that line anymore because they found working in chunks works better, it’s understandable.

November 4th, eh? Hopefully that means we’ll get a better Halloween this year. I’ve seen people doubtful about Halloween, since it’s not part of the LS, so hopefully this break will give Halloween a little love.

That is good news, Professor!

Those were ridiculously terrible rewards.

This is just plain sloppy. Not only were none of these story changes communicated at all ahead of time, but now the story just doesn’t make any sense. If they want to overhaul the Pact story arcs, that’s one thing, but you can’t just shuffle story chapters around and expect it to make sense.

People might have had their gripes here and there about the story and writing the way it was, but this is no improvement over its weaknesses, and it ruins much of what the story did well.

I was okay with a lack of development on the personal story after launch because resources were better spent developing new content, and this kind of clumsy reworking is far worse than neglect.

I’m fine with it the way it is. If you need a lore explanation, perhaps summoned elementals burn energy more quickly than minions do, which have the remains of a biological system, or perhaps they’re more unstable than naturally-occurring elementals, and collapse quickly.

But, ultimately, it’s a game mechanic, possibly to make the classes more distinct. It’s not a bug that needs fixing; it’s just different.

Although, since you said that you can’t command/control it with a skill, as of today, you can. The Glyph of Elementals skills now replace themselves with a command skill.

Behellagh.1468:

But it’s not a surprise, they clearly stated what they were doing in the blog post. 1) Break into Chapters. 2) All stories in the chapter unlock at the same time.

What did you think? That the first chapter was going to unlock at Level 1 with all stories doable by a level 1? No, last story was level 10 so whole chapter unlocks at level 10.

I’m…not sure what you’re talking about, Behellagh. I think you might be misunderstanding me. :\

I’m quoting that blog post to indicate that it said nothing about rearranging sequences. (Assuming the Fear storyline hasn’t been removed, and has just been shuffled / lost in the journal.)

Well, yeah, the Glyph of Elementals and the Glyph of Lesser Elementals. Thus the thread title.

Sorry if that was confusing.

<__<

This is an odd, pointless change that makes /me emotes look idiotic.

We have a pretty short list of emotes, frankly, and now the catch-all emote is ruined.

Edit: /me no longer repeats the player’s name. Problem solved. Hooray!

Oh, I’m aware of the collections. Whatever the collection is that Beacon of Light is a part of, however, doesn’t appear in my hero panel, probably because I don’t have anything from that list. I didn’t realize there were hidden collections like that, thus my confusion.

While it sounds sensible, I’m really not sure what problem the story chunks revision actually solves. Now instead of unlocking a story every couple of levels, I unlock a story every ten levels?

Now it just sounds like I have to over-prepare for every mission before I have the option to play it. That might keep the chunks from being interrupted, but it sounds like it does just the opposite to the experience as a whole.

I knew the Feature Pack was going to make the Glyph of [Lesser] Elementals replace itself with a command for the summoned elemental, but I just noticed that the glyphs themselves change color now based on my attunement. That’s a pretty cool little detail!

Oh, no, that’s not quite what they mean. That means that the personal story is updated to use the story journal interface, although it’s not replayable. It’s a bit of a semantic question more than anything, but it makes the whole system fit together a little better, especially for characters that haven’t finished the story yet.

It’s possible they’ll add replayability eventually (and I hope they do, because there are good story episodes,) but they haven’t announced anything concrete about it.

Ah, I hadn’t realized there were hidden collections.

Mystery solved. Thanks!

Well, it can also direct you to the next step in your personal story, or things you still need to find for World Completion. So I think it’s kinda neat, although time will tell whether it’ll prove to be more annoying than helpful.

If that happens, though, you can turn it off entirely, or adjust your preferences to it.
F11 -> General Options -> Content Guide

Seems like this could have been addressed in the Feature Pack previews. I’m not sure what the point is in having multiple weeks of previews, and yet still having unexplained surprises like this.

Next time, just wake me up for the patch notes.

DanteZero.9736:

Are we certain the personal story missions were removed or are the journal entries just rearranged in the journal and still present in the game?

That’s an excellent question, and a great reason why this should have been addressed in the feature pack previews.

Seriously, we had weeks of previews and blog posts. How did this not get explained?

Aarghleblarghle.

This is bizarre. Let’s see what the blog posts had to say about the Personal Story:

Blog Post

Personal Story

As another addition with the level-up guide, we’re updating the personal story steps using our new Story Journal so they come in story chunks that unlock all at once per chapter. When a story chapter is unlocked as a level-up reward, you’ll be able to play straight through the entire chapter from start to finish and not have any awkward starts and stops that throw off the storyline. In this way, story chapters become another big moment to look forward to earning and unlocking as your character levels up.

We’ve also taken this opportunity to go back and reevaluate the rewards of each of the major story chapters. We’ve done some pretty major overhauls to make the rewards for completing chapters feel much more compelling than they were in the past. Personal story chapters will absolutely be worth completing for your character as you progress. Similar to level-up rewards, we won’t be able to retroactively apply these to current level 80 characters, but all future characters you create or level up to 80 will benefit from this system.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/ArenaNet-just-shortened-the-Personal-Story/first#post4383237

Given that we had multiple weeks of update previews, most of which felt very minor, I see no reason why this should be coming as a surprise or lack any sort of explanation. I’m open to improvements to the Personal Story, but a little explanation would be appreciated, rather than just springing changes on us that seem to make it worse.

Even if I disagree with a decision, I’d at least like some indication that it’s had thought put into it. I just have no idea what’s going on now.

-throws hands in air-

All right, I’ve had a Beacon of Light sitting on the TP for what seems like months, after setting the price at the wrong amount. I figured there was a chance it would rise again (not much higher than the regular price,) so I just left it. It sold last night for 14.5 G, and now they’re listed for anywhere from 77G to 130G.

Did I miss something? I checked the collection achievements, but didn’t find anything that would explain it. I’m just happy I didn’t have to eat the listing fee after my pricing error, but I’m curious now as to what’s happening.

I disagree. There isn’t a better place to display it, and I think it’s fine for a friend’s list. People who want to compete with their friends over AP can, and it can sometimes serve a useful purpose in gauging other players.

I don’t mean “10,000 AP or scram” mentalities, either. If I meet someone and see they have as much AP or more than I do, then I can roughly gauge them as an experienced player. If they’re a very low number, however, I can figure that they’re either new, or they’re a casual player. If that’s the case, I’m more inclined to hold their hand and walk them through things.

AP isn’t the problem. People can be a problem. If hardcore players want to play with similar players, that’s fine, so long as no one is nasty about it.

If I understand what you’re suggesting, you want an option to prevent yourself from other player’s AP, right? But other players will still be able to see yours, unless they also hide it?

I’m not sure what problem this is solving, exactly. People who really care about other players’ AP won’t hide it. What’s the point in hiding it from people who don’t care about it anyway?

(If it’s the other way around, preventing other players from seeing your AP, that’s a different can of worms. I don’t think that would solve anything, either, because it won’t change the personality type-clash involved.)

You shouldn’t see any change, if it’s just your personal guild.

The guild vault from the world that had the highest number of slots will become your global guild vault. If your guild had the same number of slots on multiple worlds, it’ll pick the one with the most items. However, the items from other worlds’ banks will not be lost—instead, their contents will be put into extra slots, which will only be available to withdraw from and will disappear once empty.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/continued-improvements-to-the-megaserver-system/

Solomon Darkfury.3729:

2) Would the developers accept the money to do just that? Crowdfund a FULL expansion for GW2… a game that is sorely in need of some major content. Can I get a developer reply on this as this is something I am LEGITIMATELY willing to start.

You would never, ever get the go-ahead for something like that. If they wanted to try something like that, you can bet they’d do it themselves, using their marketing team, producers, and developers to give it a real strategy and to give it some extra clout by showing off ideas for an expansion. Leaving an outsider to gather investments for them would be insane.

Mungrul.9358:

It’s been a while since I checked, but last I knew ArenaNet’s forum software didn’t support polls. That’s a shame, as it would be the ideal way to gauge opinion and direct development funds.

It’s important to keep in mind that, even then, you’re only polling the forum population, which isn’t necessarily representative of the player population. That isn’t to say polls of forum people can’t be useful, but I’ve seen some rather self-selective polls on here, with predictable results.

Just wanted to drop a note saying that eithinan did, indeed, send me five gold when I answered the trivia question.

Thanks, eithinan!

It’s really a pity. Town Clothes were never broadly popular, but the tonic versions are just terrible. I get the changes to the outfit system, and I’m generally all right with it, but why make Town Clothes into tonics instead of outfits? Is anyone happy with the tonic versions?

/whinegetsbetterwithage?

I’ve been wondering what they’d do for the holidays, with Lion’s Arch all smashed up. Previously, the decorations were all focused around the trade center, but even the makeshift center at Fort Mariner looks beaten to heck and back, and the city’s attractions are generally more spread out now.

On one hand, it seems efficient for them to reuse decorations and layout. On the other hand, that would require moving a lot of stuff (gata plaza, Mystic Forge) back into their old positions, which seems unlikely. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Seth.1308:

Big surprise: The Mad King repairs the lion statue this time.

Bigger surprise: It’s fully automated with watchwork technology and proceeds on a murderous rampage.

Not a surprise: The statue workers, completely apathetic after 2 continuous years of repairing the kitten lion statue, give up and head to Queensdale to get blue blind, paralytic drunk.

Hah! Hilarious.

Krait guildhall is the best guildhall.

Krait guildhall has an open floor plan.

Krait guildhall is slippery when wet.

By difficult, do you mean tedious?

I don’t know why the assumption is that creating a new, more interesting way of creating a precursor necessarily makes obtaining a legendary weapon less cool. Have some imagination.

harrison fang.1874:

Legendaries are supposed to be for the select few that can wait and go through the process of farming to get a precursor and farm or buy all the mats and complete gifts so making the journey easier just would mean that legend arose would then be not so legendary…

They’re supposed to be that, or that’s just what they happen to be at the moment?

Can you really not imagine a more interesting, more impressive way of getting a precursor than farming for money, one that would make legendaries more legendary?

I’m not saying precursors should ever be cheap, but it’s not like legendary weapons are ever going to be easier to make than ascended gear, and ascended gear isn’t exactly cheap.

Huh, I never knew that, ChoChoBo. That’s interesting.

I’m glad to hear you got a refund or whatever, Hegediz. You’re far from the first to make this mistake, and you won’t be the last.

Behellagh.1468:

But how do people misunderstood the term unique if they hadn’t been exposed to a version that didn’t actually mean unique? Unique isn’t a SAT word. It’s dictionary definition is pretty clear. Yet people still buy multiple “unique” copies of a single item and think they can equip all.

By that logic, how can a person buy multiple unique items? “Unique” can mean one-of-a-kind, which these rings obviously aren’t, or it can just mean unusual or remarkable, which doesn’t explain that it’s a restriction.

The word has a special in-game meaning that isn’t be communicated clearly.

It’s not the end of the world, but people are going to continue to buy multiples they can’t use, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Some rewards are on there, some aren’t. You can’t get the Flames of Kryta, the Wings of the Sunless, or the Anti-toxin Injector Skin, for example.

It’s a pretty good selection, but I’m not sure it’s intended to be complete. (For better or worse, I don’t know. Some people prefer exclusives, some prefer options.)

I don’t think there’s any meaningful sort of “main map” nowadays. It’s possible to end up on a low-population map that will eventually close, but that’s fairly uncommon.

What are you trying to do, exactly? Get on a map with your friends / guildmates? Get on a map with lots of people?

DeWolfe is saying that (s)he has alts across multiple accounts, not just alts within a single account. Edit: Seems you figured that out on your own while I was writing.

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to unlock a mini to use it. If you’re currently passing minis back and forth between accounts, you can continue doing that as you have been.

Blog Post

Double-clicking a mini still works the same way. You can summon and unsummon any mini in your inventory. This does not unlock the mini for your account, however, and does not fully equip the mini. It’s just an easy way to see something in the world before you choose to unlock it.

Not at all- it’s kinda a strange line of thought, but one I found interesting. If players could trade items for items, that would either bypass taxes, or they’d have to cook up a formula for taxing them, which would probably be a bit of a mess.

I’ve never had problems getting into a dungeon because of my gear. Just don’t join groups that are explicitly looking for optimized dungeon running, since those aren’t the type of players you, personally, want to go with anyway.

I’m super chatty in dungeons and don’t always make a real effort to equip smartly, and it’s never been a problem.

As for sleeping, fast traveling, or whatever else, that really depends on the people you’re RPing with. I’m more of a “pick up and play” kind of roleplayer, so I’ve never seen anyone with actual rules in the game. I’m sure there are more dedicated guilds who might do that, though.

I know ectos weren’t special; that’s kinda the point, that they were an uncommon item that gained special importance as a makeshift currency thanks to some advantage. Their advantage over gold in GW1 was that you could use them to trade over the currency limit, while the GW2 version’s advantage would be that you could trade them tax free.

It’s not a perfect comparison, but it’s a good example of a bartering good that mutates into makeshift currency.

Regarding visual distinctiveness / visual cues as an issue:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pvp-visual-and-reward-updates/

So, yeah, that problem is already being solved. PvP players can use the standard models if it’s that important they be able to see what weapons their opponents are using.

I’m…a bit lost. It sounds like the whole theory amounts to “Anytime something is made more usable, players will like it better, which will increase demand without increasing supply. Then individual players will have to farm more to compete with each other over highly sought-after items.”

While I guess that’s true to some extent, like maybe more people will be buying minis because more people will want minis now that they’re easier to use, I’m not sure what the OP is suggesting anyone do about it. Should they not make minis easier to use? Are you saying they should increase the supply of minis? Should they not encourage trading by making a better TP experience?

Actually, that last one makes no sense at all, since more players trading would mean more taxes, which takes gold out of the economy. I’m not sure what that game update is supposed to do with increasing demand.

I don’t like to pick at players’ English, because I know it’s not everyone’s first language, but I’m having a really hard time understanding sentences like “Indeed there is no “farm spot” or those are very limited (by the farmcode), for primary goods like T6 mats – this is why the offer cannot substain the offer on this game that has 2 years old.”

It’s not asking all rewards to be for everyone. 12,000 AP is still substantially more than 90% of players have accumulated two years after release, even after the more generous rewards of Living Story Season 1.

It’s asking that people be able to complete their Radiant/Hellfire set before they start collecting the one that was their second choice. 12,000 AP is rather rare when you look at the whole player base, not just the elite, and the boots are the only “super uber rare” equipment on the AP rewards chart. It appears to be less of a conscious decision to make them rare than an awkward result of tacking them onto the end of the AP chart, instead of planning ahead for them.

simplesimon.2084:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Thanks for all the great advice, everyone.

The reason for my choosing to start over is to create a profession that I can play well in PvP and PvE.

You may want to look at just making one of each class. When they do a balance pass things can shift around. What if the new class gets a nerf in one area? Are you going to delete it again and pick the new class that currently at top?

Great advice. I’m not a competitive player, so I like to tell people to play what they enjoy, but even as a competitive player, you never know when things are going to shift.

To answer your question a bit more directly, I’ve marked up this map of Rata Sum. The city can be a little confusing if you’re new to it, but if you don’t find the bank in the middle of the map, try taking a ramp to another floor.

Welcome to GW2!

It’s important that direct trading isn’t more efficient than the TP, or the spamming starts, as people want to skip out on taxes. Even if taxes are applied to direct trading, we could still get chat advertisements, as people try to take advantage of those others not checking an item’s value. You might know that Orichalcum Ore is 5s72c selling and 4s87s buying, and I might know it, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to get someone shouting “WTB Ori Ore 4s/ea” in Lion’s Arch map chat. Even if we know better than to take that offer, we’re still hearing it.

As it is now, it’s very rare I hear anyone peddling in chat, because (insecure) off-TP trading is such an unpopular method. We could hope they’d all stick to /trade, but I’d rather keep that door shut entirely.

Here’s a curious thought: If people started direct-trading items for items, bypassing gold, I’m not sure what kind of effects that might have. Would it be taxable? Should it be taxable? Could a second economy theoretically form around an item currency, like ectos in GW1?

I think what I dislike about the boots is that they go firmly against the way the rest of the achievement rewards are set up, wherein you get to pick your favorites, then a complete collection is your reward for continuing to accumulate points, along with titles. (And other minor rewards.)

If you want to show off your achievements with armor, there are visible notches at 3k, 6k, 9k, and 21k. Meanwhile, titles show off your progress at 5k, 10k, 15k, and 20k, and 25k. Titles clearly do a better job of showing AP accumulation, while armor has this massive gap where no one can tell whether you’re wearing your 3k gloves or your 12k gloves.