In a few days Im going to be in a terrible position. I will have the gift of mastery, juggernaut, and fortune. I will have run out of money of course, and i will be low on karma as well. I will have no resources, but I will own everything but the pre-cursor. Without a way to earn it, I will have to grind money purely for the sake of throwing it either into the TP or the MF, to get out the hammer. I cannot earn it slowly and steadily, but instead rely on others in the TP, or hope for luck in the MF. In my opinion, ridiculous..
Buff to path 2 SE seems bad. The path was longer than all the rest, moderately harder, and those bosses are already long and arduous. Not particularly challenging I will concede, but when both bosses target a single player for the entire encounter, making it more difficult for him is completely unfair. (this is what happens btw, I as a guardian will be chased by the melee golem, and be shot at by the ranged one as well; the entire fight, im the only target til downed).
Ive had no significant change.
If only it was retroactive.
Any more info? They have added a Jug of Karma to daily achievements so perhaps that is the method?
My notes are unambiguous.
I whole heartedly agree with this; ac takes strategy and skill. CoF takes 30 minutes even on your first go.
Can we got confirmation that this is beign looked into? Its a huge issue.
This issue is a nightmare and needs to be fixed; its been in since BWE1, although was much less prevalent in the third for some reason.
This is the biggest issue in the game at the moment. Forget bad economy, poor rewards, bots and hacking, they dont affect me as much as not being able to play well.
There is no point beating 30 minutes because of DR
Guardians are incredibly useful.
Ive played this game a lot, and my past few weeks have been solely concentrated on the legendary Hammer the Juggernaut. Ive earnt about 70% of it now, although of course I have started with the easiest sections first, and left the harder sections til last. My analysis is that there needs to be some changes.
A quick review will put my point into context:
I require 250 metal ingots, of 5 different varieties. This requires a moderate amount of time or money, but never too much. You can salvage, gather or purchase your way to success.
I require 150 lodestones, specifically molten variety. This is a more hefty money/time investment but certainly do-able. That which I cannot earn from CoF runs, I can buy up with excess money. The key is I have options available.
I need 500 WvW badges, again a lot but not too formidable. I can take enemy keeps/ camps, I can do the jumping puzzles and I can gank enemy players. Eventually I will double my current 250, and be done with it all.
I need 500 ectos approximately. Ive nearly done this, smply because yellow items are so easy to earn. Craft yellow items with mithril, or stack on magic find and farm enemies/chests, in any area of the game. You will get ectos if you use decent salvage kits and so again we are faced with a reasonable task that can be completed in multiple ways.
My issue is hopefully becoming more apparent.
The karma requirement for a legendary is very high. The projected requirement is 1 million karma. If you are quite unlucky it could be easily 10-30% more than that.
Additionally, compounding the issue is that, whilst you can gain karma anywhere in open world, you are limiting your personal gain if you do not stick to a single area and master it. This is what people are already doing in masses.
Cursed shore has become a social gathering for karma farmers. We call out “plinx ready”, “arena is up”, all because we have a mutual understanding. Players have gravitated to a single area, mastering it for maximum karma rewards per hour, and they know that swapping to another area will tank down their rate of karma gathered.
So we are faced with a huge task of karma (although certainly a reasonable one eventually), but where players are rewarded heavily for sticking with what they know. This causes a drive to not do varied things, as we have seen is available for each other task, but to grind.
This is a problem and should be changed. Note that my objection is not towards the karma requirement itself, but the severe skew towards boring grind playstyles. Without this method, the reward is too much. Nerfing individual areas events will not be a good solution. This would simply push the problem to a different area. DR methods that cap karma gain is an unfulfilling solution, as players feel heavily victimised when they hit it, as it is a change of negativity (taking away).
I personally suggest allowing players to trade dungeon tokens for chalices of karma, that can be consumed for a grant of karma, but I wonder if players agree. Do you think that the karma requirements are too high? Do you think that karma grinding over more general play is necessary for players, and do you think its good design philosophy?
I spent 400 ascalonian tears on an item that does not function as advertised (the ghost slaying potion does not exist, so a recipe for it is obviously flawed).
I was hoping this would be a fully ironic thread and the original post would indicate something extra ordinarily simple such as “all dps the boss” and nothing else. Anything more is just overkill; this boss is now super easy.
I mean Citadel of Flame or even Arah is a cakewalk compared to that.
So a dungeon that can be 3 maned by two 80’s and a 46 is harder than Giganticus?
They even killed Kholer which can be 100% skipped.
Weve also killed giganticus, although it took 5 people.
Another solution MAY be to have that problem player enter a home instance or a personal story instance (the logic being that this will destroy their individual version of the dungeon that they are being forced into). After this, the game may send them to the leaders instance, rather than into their own one.
I would think that logging off for 5-15 is having the same effect of killing their created instance. It would be nice if there was a simple command that would do this same situation without costing 6 silver.
Its a good boss.
And Im sure a lot of us thought there were secrets of ascalon yet to be discovered, not yet to be uploaded into the game ^^
Are you even aware of the actual changes to this boss?
Hodgins route is extremely doable, as you arent timed, rather you are pressured, and so if you group enemies on the burrows, you neednt hit often anyway, its just preferable. Eventually you will win with the right strategy, as mentioned previously.
Its extremely buggy, but it can be done despite this. Its not really acceptable, but you can take hammers and staves and those tend to hit better (certainly for guardians these 2 are recommended). Its a lot worse for Tzarks plan, than for Hodgins, which seems to have a more reliable hit rate.
You do realise humans got magic and instantly rallied together to steal the charr homelands of ascalon from them for themselves? The charr were simply taking back what was theirs, and then the King Adelbern decided that he would childishly never allow the charr to reclaim it by sacrificing his entire nation into an army of ghosts..
And you think charr are bad?
Provide examples of bosses that cant be beaten by well coordinated teams please.
Thats the design, although I would agree with you that it is difficult (especially with bad for rangers/necros). I wouldnt agree that this was a bug however.
Relevant to a different forum post, there is some more information here:
Well if you simplify what each profession is bring into roles then its easier to judge what is necessary and what is not.
In my (biased) opinion, Guardian is essential. The staff 4th and 5th abilites are vastly superior to anything any other profession can bring in terms of might and also the invaluable wall spell, that maintains such huge amounts of safety against melee mobs. If you can bring such huge defence from another profession (perhaps huge amounts of blind, or infinite chill) then and only then can the guardian be replaced.
The warrior represents DPS. He racks up huge numbers, using the passive and active guardian abilities to do it safely. Other elemnts that help are vulnerability, shouts, and interrupts. All of these can be performed by other professions, although perhaps not as well/ safely.
The mesmer is nowhere near as essential, bringing condition removal and quickness simply to reduce dangers in certain fights (for example killing a burrow more quickly will save on a breeder spawn). This role can be exchanged for any profession that can assist in damage and keeping everyone alive.
Specifically, a thief could easily replace the mesmer, although it might not be totally advised. It would probably seriously struggle to replace the roles of the guardian, but might perhaps fare well in the DPS role of the warrior.
I can get the warrior to post his traits, and for this run each of us were running exotic magic find armour. The mesmer is not even level 80 yet, and her gear is probably already replaced by something else.
Just finished uploading a run of me and my guildmates completing ascalon explorable with only 3 people, in just over 30 minutes.
The purpose is to entertain and teach players who are wanting to start explorable dungeons, but also respond to complaints that dungeons are too hard. Clearly if 3 players (and potentially only 2) can run an entire route that is neither bugged nor exploitable, then teams of 5 should never have any problem. Ventrilo recording is kept in, although its use is minimal because of the comfort and familiarity each member has.
Also this video may be extremely useful to Guardians wishing to learn a huge deal more about their role in a small, focused party and what they can bring to ensure victory.
Traits are shown in the video at 9:06, and almost all weapons are used eventually, highlighting the genuine balance between almost all options.
For those curious, there is no genuine benefit to having only 3 people, apart from the increased challenge. It would be nice if (like in gw1) if bringing less people rewarded you more greatly, but as it stand we would have recieved just as much with 2 leechers filling the spare spaces.
A written guide by myself divulges more information about each area, to complement the video. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascalonian_Catacombs_
There are two kinds of undead enemies: Zhaitans Risen and Ascalonian Ghosts.
There are two kinds of potion recipes available: potions of undead slaying (against the risen) and potions of ghost slaying (for ascalonian ghosts).
However, there is no recipe for potions of ghost slaying and they do not drop. For almost all accounts they do not exist, except for the recipe purchasable from Historian Symon. He sells a recipe known as “Extended Potion of Ghost Slaying” for 400 tears.
On use, this recipe unlocks “Extended Potion of Undead Slaying” in my crafting list, not what it claims to unlock.
Clearly there is a set of potions missing from the game still, known as ghost slaying, that do not drop and cannot be crafted.
Any more thoughts?
It never bugs. If you interrupt him whilst he is charging, he will stop charging and go straight into the spin, but in this situation, he will not grab you.
In a couple of months there will be a consensus that all dungeons are too easy. This will be without any actual changes, but the general skill of players increasing over time. The problem lies with players not with the instances in most cases (there are some dungeons that are not well tuned).
I still think this guide is useful, let me know if anyone is finding success with it, and if there is any contructive criticism to add.
I will be adding videos soon as well of sub 20 minute runs for each route hopefully.
Me and my guild just cleared the Muursat route of the explorable dungeon of arah. It was fun, difficult and not at all broken in places, so overall a rousing success.
However that covers the most important aspect, the gameplay. After that, I would like to draw serious criticism to the story that is told.
The most exciting moment for me in this game was entering into the dungeons explorable mode entrance; for those avoiding spoilers, avoid here!
You are faced with the line choose which elder race to learn about. Read that again, because thats a key point of this complaint. You are also faced with Ogden! Awesome.
So after 3 hours of awesome play and teamwork, we kill the final boss. Each and every other boss before that had merely promised that revelations would occur later, and nothing interesting was provided on the way. Hopes were high for major reveals at the final boss fight.
Nothing. A massive let down. The route leader tells you before you set off some key new information: the muursat hid from the elder dragons selfishly, in a half-world away from Tyria. After their slumber ended, they would return to rule. All this is given at the start before you encounter any combat, and should be seen as a primer for not so lore savvy players trying to keep up.
What are you given at the end?
“Amazing. These artifacts reveal the full story.” Ho boy you are excited already.
“The races gathered together to fight the dragons, each contributing something.” Ha brilliant.
“Hmm. Yet the mursaat took their knowledge and fled into a half-world, out of phase with our own”. Right. Great, knew that but ok.
“They would have let the rest of the world die just to save themselves. Huh. Just like the Inquest.”
End. Dungeon reward, and a prompt to leave…
Utterly dissappointed; can Ree or Geoff indicate if this is really what they intended for players who care about the history? Is the instance bugged? Am I missing something, perhaps secrets along the route that must be discovered indepently?
Has anyone else experienced something similar or different to my experience. Thanks for reading.
Here are some quotes from Jon Peters, game designer:
Also to claim you are not within a minority is assuredly not true. Your guild is a minority, the forum readers are a minority and always will be. No matter how many pages (certainly 12 pages with about 12 threads a page does not constitute millions of players complaining) or guild members, you are simply not a large enough group to claim you have authority or power in decisions of game design.
So find me some ppl that bother to show me how awsome these dungeons are. So far Ive tried to find vids of it and tried to get ppl that are live streaming it to show us. The answers are… They are boring and badly designed. We are not doing them.
Im fine with ANET keeping their stand on this. But just dont expect me to buy any expansions or spend money on this game in any other shape. The game that has such standpoint on dungeons does not deserve to get more money in my eyes.
There are surely plenty of people enjoying these dungeons in silence. They go in with their friends, they play well, they get loot and they move on. At no point in that chain of events would they consider going to the forums to express their opinions; certainly not in the same vein that droves of complainers do. There is no compulsion to say thank you, or admire good work from developers, in the same regard as there is to cry and whine of difficulty and lack of rewards.
From my own personal experience, I hugely enjoy ascalon explorable. Ive completed enough runs to earn roughly 1000 tears, Ive written a comprehensive guide for each route, and I run it most days with my guild and with pugs to help them through. Ive got 3 separate Ghastly weapons, which I love having, and feel no entitlement to more than that. I have surely mastered the entire challenge, but I still dont feel I deserve a full set of armour and weapons to show for it. Its simply unreasonable to ask for everything at once.
If you want to succeed in ascalon story mode, and you are a level 30 player in moderate gear, you are faced with 2 options:
1. Level up to 80, buy perfect gear and come back with a massive crutch.
2. Play better: dodge better, use better skill sets and weapon choices, make better use of combo fields.
The instances require teamwork and good play, which is more vital than good gear and higher levels.
I think a better solution would be to give respawn times for dead players. If you get stuck in geometry, you need waypoints to get out. There are surely plenty of other standard reasons for waypoints other than abusing them to recover from death instantly.
Here are some quotes from Jon Peters, game designer:
“If you run the exact same chain twice in a row you will have your rewards cut. This means you can bounce back and forth between 2 different chains, even in the same dungeon without ever hitting this change. This change is made to encourage people to try different chains.”
This is absolutely spot on. There are 3 routes for the exact purpose of allowing players to redo content for multiple dungeon tokens, without making them repeat the same exact content concurrently. This change means that players who can master mutliple routes (only 2 of 3 is enough) will be able to earn tokens faster than groups who can only do 1 route. Automatically you cut down on teams exploiting routes that are individually easier than the others available, and maintain the prestige of the armour/ weapon sets available. This is extremely important, and reduces occurences of the Magg situation immediately. Either you farm Magg loads more, or you learn a new route.
“If you speed clear dungeons at a rate of more than 2/ hour, and continue to do that for some time your rewards will slowly begin to degrade. It doesn’t kick in after running a single dungeon and it doesn’t immediately zero out rewards.”
This here is a more difficult one to defend; the developers are clearly giving us a minimum time frame for dungeon completions, and if we can beat that are punishing us. I disagree with this decision overall, but I can see its benefit. It again reduces issues with routes from any dungeon that are decidely more quick than any other routes, and furthermore, more rapid than the developers intended. Instantly this weakens strategies that may be abusing game mechanics for fast victory, and maintains the validity and prestige of tokens. My hesitation is that genuinely fast clears of dungeons can be done without any exploitation at all, but instead good strategy and skill, and this should be certainly no less rewarded than slower groups.
Also to claim you are not within a minority is assuredly not true. Your guild is a minority, the forum readers are a minority and always will be. No matter how many pages (certainly 12 pages with about 12 threads a page does not constitute millions of players complaining) or guild members, you are simply not a large enough group to claim you have authority or power in decisions of game design.
(edited by Renegade.6325)
There is a huge difference between a vocal minority of complainers on this forum, and “a majority of people don’t like the update”. I am not interested if 3 of your friends in your guild disagree with me, because they also do not comprise large section of the entire playerbase.
It does alight, just not consistently as is described, or as often as Historian Symon’s. There is a bug here.
As a side note, it would be nice if they were lit during ascalon catacombs runs, as well as just outside, as these are the most useful places to show off the glow.
Massively agreed; one of the very few useful threads in this entire section.
My experience is similar. I would much rather be faced with a genuine challenge of strategy and teamwork that must be outskilled and out-thought, than be faced with the potentiality of loot.
The bosses drop moderate amounts of money even if the chests dont
Looks great, seems to hold up with my teams experience as well. Btw his name is giganticus lupicus i believe.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60739-ascalon-explorable-guide/
Cant copy the entire thing into this forum, because it doesnt allow posts of any decent length.