I find I have almost exactly the right amount for making salvaging kits. I’m not so sure any other use would hit that kind of equilibrium, and I don’t want them putting much dev time into increasing demand for a mystic forge stones.
If they were trying to raise demand for them in order to sell more, I’d understand that, but if you’re already receiving more than you can use, you’re clearly not purchasing more of them. There’s not a business motive at play here unless they make something that needs enough stones that people will consider buying them, and there’s not a “fix the in-game economy” motive at play, so addressing this problem solves a very limited set of goals.
You do NOT get the individual level-up rewards. I used mine on an alt, so I can confirm it.
I was actually relieved by this, because what you do get is better than anything you get, then immediately outgrow using tomes, but if you were hoping for one of the items you would get leveling up, you should know you’ll bypass it with the level 80 boost.
It’s a heck of a lot less clicking and inventory work, let me tell you.
If they did introduce a “Level 80 Experience Scroll” to the gem store, I think they’d have to package it with different contents. Even aside from the gear (which is nothing to sneeze at,) the Celebratory Dye Pack is extremely valuable.
I don’t have a strong opinion about whether or not they should sell a level 80 boost, but I’m curious what people would be willing to pay for one, assuming no items came with it.
I have to admit, I’ve been focusing on the gliding achievements, and now the “kill branded” achievement, and in the process I’m contributing very little to breaking the bar, even though I need that achievement as well.
Sometimes I’ll see someone calling it out (and then I might stop what I’m doing and help,) but if it’s just a bunch of people doing their own thing, I just keep on keeping on.
I’m a huge fan of the scaling system, because it lets me go wherever I want at max level without feeling like a waste of time. Back when I played Everquest, I had a favorite zone that I eventually leveled out of, so that the enemies died right away and I no longer received any rewards for playing there. I moved on to a level-appropriate zone, but it was never as much fun after that.
I might not be able to just faceroll enemies everywhere, but I definitely feel a lot stronger than I did originally. Even with scaling, I have better gear, I have a better build, and I’m simply a better player than I was when I started. That’s enough advantage while still being enjoyable.
I think the “journey” aspect of the collections has been reasonably popular, but the high number of bugs, RNG-based stalls, and events that need to fail in order to progress the collection have tempered some of the interest. Not to mention they’re expensive enough to put off a lot of players, myself included, from even starting them, because we know they’re a massive material sink.
They’re a great concept, but they have some problems. I really like the idea of them, but I’m more likely to do something like map achievements, living story achievements, Mistward armor collections, elite specialization collections, etc., than I am a precursor journey. Those things will give me rewards I can’t buy, without much expense, while the (core weapon) precursor journeys promise a non-exclusive reward that I might be able just buy cheaper. I actually save money by experiencing less content, with some of them, and that’s…pretty lame.
They’re necessary for some things, but are they valuable...
I think most people who play frequently probably have more of one, two, or all three of these materials than they need. They gate some content, mostly the crafting of ascended gear, to a certain amount of play, but they’re not easily convertible into anything else.
The ascended eaters are fun, but they mostly give junk, so I wouldn’t feel bad if you find it more convenient to just toss materials you don’t need, either.
It would make thematic sense to add it to the ecto skritt, because it’s historically linked to ectos, but a gemstore item seems more likely, as RoseofGilead says.
You could craft The Colossus and sell it, keeping the Mystic Chromatic Ooze. You’ll need a significant amount of initial investment, and you’ll probably lose gold on the deal in the end, but that’s because it’s cheaper to just buy a The Colossus than to craft it. I totally understand not loving that option, but it’s an option.
Items like the Mystic Chromatic Ooze do make the crafting-is-more-expensive situation a bit more appealing. Interesting. I’m going to have to see what other gizmos collections provide…
Just as a confirmation, here’s what the patch notes say:
We overhauled daily achievements, adding new, specific Heart of Thorns dailies for those who own the expansion, plus new jumping puzzle, minidungeon, and dungeon path dailies to the regular rotation.
So, whether you want the HoT dailies or not, people without HoT aren’t getting shortchanged.
If you hadn’t announced that’s what those letters were, I would never have guessed they were your initials, especially since you have four of them. (At least where I am, it’s uncommon for most people to have initials longer than three letters.)
It’s your business, but I wouldn’t worry about it, personally. <<;
There is a LOT that I’m pleased with, but I’m especially pleased to have effects LOD. It’s a small thing, sure, but I main an Elementalist, and I’ve seriously missed my old Fireballs these past few months. Fire darts just never felt right.
I have a hard time taking balance judgements seriously mere hours after the patch. They could be spot-on, they could be wildly off, but people are going to need a little time to figure it out one way or the other.
Alas, no one has any idea whatsoever when it’ll be back. It’s possible it will return for an anniversary sale at the end of summer, but there’s no guarantee, especially when this is the first time it’s come back, unlike outfits that come and go pretty frequently.
Of course, the March sale wasn’t really tied to any event, unless you count spring, so it’s really anyone’s guess when something like that will happen again. Sorry!
A single boost to level 80 doesn’t bother me, and there’s no denying that we’ve been saying since launch that “Unless you want a revenant, HoT doesn’t offer you anything until 80.” I’m totally okay with this.
People who want to explore can still explore. Lapsed players who want to dive into HoT can do so. People still have to learn to play the game well, and a level boost isn’t going to do that for them.
Back in my day we had to level to 80 uphill in the snow! And we were better for it! Of course, all this were fields back then. We didn’t have no fancy waypoints either, we used to run to where the waypoints are now with our eyes shut making “pheeeeeow!” noises. Kids today with their fancy SAB and their backwards baseball caps and their trousers around their knees. They don’t know how soft they have it! Get off my lawn!
You had me at “Of course, all this were fields back then.” Bravo.
I just don’t understand what problem this is solving. I understand the game might be more difficult to adapt to than most of us long-time players will acknowledge, but I don’t think two-handed weapons are that difficult a concept.
It had 78 tracks across 4 cds, composed by Jeremy Soule, who did the soundtracks for GW1. It’s been unavailable for a long time now, unfortunately.
Meanwhile, the post-release soundtrack has gotten some releases via SoundCloud, and Heart of Thorns had a soundtrack release that’s available digitally in various places, or with a physical record.
How long does city completion take? I hear that suggested all the time, but it sounds like a pain to me.
(It’s been a long while since I completed cities on my main, and my alts rarely bother, if ever, so I don’t have any idea how long a full runaround takes.)
I’m sure some people use a lot more transmutation charges than others, or would like to but don’t because they’re limited-or-cost, but it’s been a long, long time since I worried about running out of them. Three-per-month (login rewards) is generally more than I use.
Much as I like the idea of stuff happening on the forums, this forum software isn’t great, and a forum isn’t a great platform for a Q&A like this, anyway.
I don’t even use Reddit, and I would still rather read it over there than read a massive thread here. It’s just better suited to the occasion.
No company is going to give an “estimated lifespan” unless they’re shuttering in the next few months and need to give players notice. To say, “We expect our MMO to last ~7 years and then peter out” would just be stupid business practice.
They’re just going to play it by ear, for as long as the game can support itself. That’s all the can do.
I only lightly touched on SAB in previous years, because I was busy at the time, but I managed to spend a weekend in World 1 this year doing achievements, and I had a great time. I’m really looking forward to tackling World 2 next year!
Thanks to the people who brought it back! Great to finally see what all the fuss is about.
It’s part of a larger policy shift, which is simply “less talk, more action.” Fewer promises and less hype, more deliverables.
While everything has already been finalized for the release and been through testing, so there’s (almost) no chance of anything they’d put in previews a week in advance being pulled, I think the silence is just part of their larger change in approach. I’m not in love with it, because I like preview posts, but I’m cautiously optimistic about their renewed focus.
There are some legendaries I’d like that would suit my main (Bifrost, Kraitkin,) but I’ve yet to bring myself to commit that many resources to one thing, for one character. I have other characters that use Staff, but realistically, I’m not going to be unequipping it and passing it around constantly, and I’ll frequently play multiple characters during a single session.
Right now, I’d rather just make a couple ascended weapons and save the mountain of gold for gems and assorted nonsense.
Just stop holding down the space bar, you only need to tap it in order to jump.
Or they could provide an option to disable it. You could just as easily say, “Don’t double-tap when you’re in a high place,” but we still have an option to disable double-tap dodging.
Jumping puzzles aren’t unplayable with gliding, obviously, but that doesn’t mean the experience wouldn’t be improved by the option.
Maybe you’re right about that particular detail, but the general point remains: the original town clothes were city-only, so something had to be changed to make them available as outfits in combat — lots of animations, adjustments to dye channels, whatever.
City-only? I used to wear them out in the field all the time. With conjured weapons, I could even fight weak enemies in them, although my armor would automatically reappear as soon as I took damage. Couldn’t do a whole lot that way, but Mad King Thorn wielding a fiery greatsword used to be an unusual site back in the day.
Most of the barriers were mechanical limitations of town clothing, in that they disabled your skills and would turn themselves off when you took damage. There’s no animation difference, to my knowledge.
That’s a good point but isn’t it kinda a bad idea to promote it on their Facebook if it’s just them moving the portal entrance?
They also had a clip today that appears to be a ranger auto-attacking and moving at the same time. I wouldn’t read too much into the scale of it just because their social media promoted it.
You might want to wait until after next Tuesday’s update to decide, since it is expected to change up a lot of things, including making HoT less grindy / time-consuming.
I’d toss it, personally. No idea how it got into the non-beta side of your account, but I wouldn’t expect it to ever turn into something useful.
You can hang onto it as a collectible if you want, but this game has enough souvenirs that I wouldn’t bother with such a vague one that doesn’t do anything.
They might not be as flashy as a lot of outfits, but they’re nice, and obviously a lot of work went into them since they’re unique by race. Seems like a shame to just leave them as tonics, where they’re temporary, unusable in combat, and cannot be dyed.
Oh, was it? I thought it was a lot more. My memory must be going. :/
My loss, I guess! $25 isn’t a bad price, even if they weren’t more like $250 now.
Edit: Looks like it was $30, which still isn’t a terrible price for 4 CDs. (If you could have bought them anywhere other than DirectSong, it seems, anyway.)
There are some interesting ideas in there, but I don’t think it would make much sense to implement. Legendaries are already in high demand as it is, so it’s not like Anet needs to further incentivize people to make them.
Seeing as Anet diverted the resources that were supposed to go into the rest of the Heart of Thorns legendaries into other content instead, I don’t think this idea would fit in with their priorities at the moment.
I usually see it suggested as an options-window feature, like the option to disable double-tap-to-dodge. The idea of having it in the character equipment screen is a neat alternative.
I love gliding, but it can be pretty frustrating when you’re trying to do a non-HoT jumping puzzle.
It’s disappointing that the core game’s soundtrack ended up like it did. I didn’t get one right away because it was fairly expensive, and it sounds like a dodged a bullet in dealing with DirectSong.
The songs in game are good, so I’d like to have a copy, but I regret how problematic it is to get it much more than I regret not bothering about it.
I don’t notice. I’ve mostly done dungeons/fractals with PUGs, and I haven’t done tried raiding yet. I try to keep an eye on other people so I can support them, but I rarely pay any attention to what skills, builds, etc. they’re using unless it’s something that really stands out.
Instead of thinking of it as us slowing down when we enter combat, think of it as speeding up when we’re out of combat.
It doesn’t make sense for monsters to have that, because they don’t care if they get to a dynamic event before it ends, or if it takes them five minutes to walk across the map. Out of combat speed is useful for players, but pointless for monsters.
I wish they’d just have a special effects slot for things like Nightfury, Winter’s Presence, Refractors, Bees, Ghostly Infusion, etc. That would solve several points of weirdness with these things, like not being able to use Nightfury and a normal shoulder piece, having to use an exotic accessory with a celestial upgrade to use refractors, etc.
It’s probably not going to kill a person’s build to have an aesthetic-over-stats piece in their build, but it’s silly for them to have to choose between the two. If they’re going to keep making items like this, it would be great if they standardized them a bit.
Elite Specs make recreating a character with tomes less appealing, I’d imagine. Even if you’re swimming in the things and gear up with account-bound equipment, you still wouldn’t fully unlock your elite spec for a good while.
Not to mention that resets your birthday counter.
Actually, it doesn’t reset your birthday counter — each character gets their own birthday counter independent of the others.
I’m talking about the downsides of deleting a character and replacing it a tome-leveled version in order to redo map completion on that character. That would obviously reset the birthday counter of that character, since the new version is, well, new.
-I assume you wouldn’t lose hero points when you reset your exploration. Reactivating hero points / hero challenges would just fill them out on the map, without giving you more.
-I’m assuming the reset button only applies to the entire world, not just a single map. If I could grind one map over and over, that might lead to a little abuse, but it doesn’t seem like a tremendously lucrative thing to do the entire world, then reset it. Sure, you get some exotics from late maps, but it’s not like you can just spam Cursed Shore over and over without doing Timberline Falls, Plains of Ashford, etc. World Completion is time-consuming, even on a fully-specced character, so I don’t see that as cheapening Gifts of Exploration or anything else in a significant way.
Elite Specs make recreating a character with tomes less appealing, I’d imagine. Even if you’re swimming in the things and gear up with account-bound equipment, you still wouldn’t fully unlock your elite spec for a good while.
As we prep for release, you’ll notice that we’re not doing the series of advance blog posts that we had done for some prior releases. Hopefully that’s not too surprising; I’ve written a few times since taking this role that I think our job is to delight you with what we ship, not with talk and promises.
Fair enough. It’s a little harder to get hyped for it, when we know so little about what it includes, but I’m looking forward to the release!
Ah, right, so they did. I don’t WvW, so I have to admit I don’t follow its news closely. Aren’t we expecting some changes to population balance, the Alpine Borderlands, and some kind of beta testing feature in the near future, if not in the next patch?
They’ve been surprisingly tight-lipped about what’s coming in the next patch. We know they’re going to be making a boatload of corrective changes (cheaper scribing, reversion to Alpine Borderlands, something to make HoT less time-intensive,) but it’s unknown whether there will be any new content, or even new non-content features, like the (pending) LFG tool update.
I want to be excited, but there’s not much to go on. I’m glad for the corrective changes, but it’s going to be a long time until next quarter, and LS3 doesn’t sound like it’ll start for a while yet.
