Guild Wars 2

That build is much better suited for skirmishing or catching people delaying behind the rest of a group. Running blindly in the middle of a zerg is a very specific part of WvW, and if you really want to use your build, you should choose a part of WvW better suited for it than zerging.

I like this thread; it’s a lot more civil than I’m used to dealing with, haha.

The fights this week have felt a lot more enjoyable and balanced than we (SBI) have been experiencing in previous weeks after we lost so many servers. We’re looking to rebuild, and while we probably won’t fight you two servers again for awhile after this reset business, the battles have been fun and I look forward to running into you all again.

Errant Venture.9371:

Would it be possible for players to have access to this sort of transaction data? We can monitor sell listing volume, but as you’ve pointed out, that’s not particularly useful.

This would be incredible, if somewhere on the GW2 website (or maybe in-game on the TP) we could have a real market monitor and tracker. It’d help players get a real sense for the scale of the TP.

Hello, everyone!

[VZ] is a relatively medium-sized PvE primary / WvW secondary guild on the Stormbluff Isle server. We don’t have the largest of groups, but we’re looking to expand, and we make it a point to be a super casual group with the freedom to play the game how you want to, but we make sure that we’re top players while we do it. We have full guild upgrades and have all of the other upgrades ready for use on weekends or when veteran guild members need them.

At a Glance Details:

• Stormbluff Isle Server, NA
• Primary weekday play times are evenings EST (also support PST; we stay up late)
• Primary weekend play times are all day
• 45-55 members, 5-15 active at once during our primetime
• 25 additional members across different servers that join us for guild missions
• Weekly Guild Mission Events (Bounties / Treks)
• WvW (Skirmishes / Organized) / PvE / Dungeons (All) / Fractals (40 plus)
• Guild chat is light-medium (We’re talkative, but sometimes do our own thing)
• Teamspeak 3 (Recommended, but not required)

The following part is bolded because it’s important:
We are not a meat-grinder guild; we are not interested in players who just want to use us as a tool to level-up easier or finish dungeons easier. We want players who are self-motivated, fun-loving, chill, and enjoyable to be around. We want you to be our friend, not just another member of a guild.

We’re quite accomplished players with tons of achievement points and items under our belts, and we’re looking to expand by meeting like-minded individuals. The guild has no website and no mandatory voice chat, though we do have a TS server that you can use; I’m personally always on TS if I’m in-game. It’s purely optional, of course. We’re particularly looking for players who are open-minded, chill, willing to represent more often than not (though it’s not required), and willing to reach out and talk! It’s okay if you’re shy, but we don’t bite (much), so we encourage participation.

The guild is small enough that we’d like to get to know you as people, and we want to make friends. That’s what we’re all about. We’re willing to work with new players who are leveling up (and if you want to WvW with us to level up, that’s totally cool!), but we are mostly an end-game guild who does end-game content. In that vein, if you’re looking for people to run around a level 25 zone, you probably won’t find much of that here.

If the guild sounds like a good fit for you, or if you’d like to run around with us to get a feel for the guild, whisper or mail me in-game and we’ll work something out. We don’t really do a trial or anything, and usually you can tell how awesome a person is just by talking with them for a little bit.

Just let me know @ ‘Rising Dusk.2408’ and I’d be happy to talk it through with you.
Cheers, and looking forward to meeting you!

No, it’s RNG, and is working as intended.

I’d invite any of you to join my guild.

Where are people like you all in-game and why can’t I find more? Haha.

His view of his situation isn’t the problem, the problem really is the situation he’s in.

It is important having players represent because it gives people others to talk to and interact with and play with. It’s not as simple as being okay with inactivity or what-have-you, because you need to present your players with an “active enough” user base so that they want to stay active themselves. This critical mass for a guild is important for the sustainability of the guild.

This is something that small guilds have to deal with. It’s happened to me, too, where players simply have no initiative and want to be invited, personally, to everything that happens in the guild. Then when I, the guild leader, have to work 40 hour weeks and decide to do something else for a few hours a week instead of GW2, the guild crashes, no one represents except a select few, and it feels like a lot of wasted effort. Even guild benefits and perks don’t keep people representing all the time.

I think the big problem is that there are a lot of these small guilds, and only so many big guilds. The big guilds win by association; they’re seen everywhere, they mass recruit, and if people leave it’s no big deal. They require representation, and if you don’t you get kicked, but they have so many active members that it doesn’t matter. The thing with this mass recruitment strategy is that for every two-dozen worthless sods that join, you can sometimes get one really good member who is willing to put forth the effort. Repeat this process enough, and eventually you have a very strong guild with lots of people taking initiative, and lots of friendships being made.

I’ve learned from running a guild just like yours that being selective in the application process is totally ineffective unless you’re already a huge enough guild with a good enough player base that losing new incoming players doesn’t hinder you at all. When you’re this small, you need players who are willing to represent to improve the guild. Just getting a starting 50 is a good starting place. The best thing I can suggest, if possible, is to merge with other guilds in similar positions on the same server and try to build up your base.

A lot of this to me indicates a failing in the GW2 guild structure. It gives you the freedom to be in many guilds, but only really care about one of those guilds you’re in at a given time. This means that you, the player, can care about a guild only when the guild cares about you, which puts people into the situation you’re currently in. There’s nothing we can do about the system, all we can do is try to make do with what we have. If only people like you and I could find other people like you and I, we’d all be happy! Unfortunately, people like you and I tend to all want to lead their own guilds, which leaves few of you and I left to join and support those guilds that are made. I’ve met tons of really awesome players who, unfortunately, lead their own guilds and would never join mine as a result. That’s the sort of problem you and I inevitably face, and well, them’s the breaks. We just have to make do.

Good luck.

No one knows. You’ll just have to wait until it’s fixed is all anyone can say.

No, you don’t because they currently don’t contain Ranger-only gear. The Ranger gear packs will be re-enabled once the bug is fixed that you can get non-Ranger gear with them.

(source)

I wish we players could farm enough of the blasted items to move the ‘intended’ equilibrium closer to where it was when the bots were around.

I like achievement points because they make me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.

That’s the thing with a new game, though, there are a lot of exploits to work through. Eventually, though, there simply aren’t any new exploits to take advantage of in old content. It may seem crazy, but six months isn’t a very long lifespan thus far for a game like an MMO. If this game is as popular as sales lead me to believe, then yes, this game has many years ahead of itself to look forward to. Guild Wars 1, for instance, was still going strong after seven years, and still lives on now. That game had few exploits because, well, you couldn’t jump in the traditional sense.

A cheating mindset is toxic to any game, but it’s not specific to this game. Countless other MMOs, and games in general, feature exploits that players endlessly take advantage of to get ahead. ANet, compared to many other companies, has been very proactive in removing these exploits as fast as possible. I certainly agree with the logic that “exploiters suck and they shouldn’t be allowed to exploit”, but I don’t think sweeping bans is the answer to that problem. I think what ANet has been doing, and continues to do, is the correct approach.

The problem here is that it is not always clear. For months, people said that skipping Kohler, for example, was an exploit that should be closed. It took months before a developer came in and specifically said “This boss is optional with a bonus chest and waypoint for those who choose to kill him.” The same can be said of Korga in Arah, and many other bosses in the dungeons (Champion Destroyer Crab!). The problem is that people like to assume they know what was intended and what wasn’t, and while some things are pretty obvious (pathing through cliffs and doing multiple paths in one), many things aren’t. It’s a slippery slope that I don’t think ANet has the resources to enforce, nor would they want to. Playing the game fearful that anything you do can get you banned is terrible.

Furthermore, how do you handle the situation where you do half a path ‘legitimately’ and then 4/5 of your team wants to exploit the last half? You did all that work to get there, and you really want the reward, but if you don’t go along with them, you get kicked and have wasted your time. In this case, many players “go along” with the exploit in order to not get screwed out of their time, and so these players would get banned by association.

This sort of thing, unlike say, buying 2000 21 karma cultural weapons, is much more difficult to quantify the guilt of, and I think ANet recognizes that and doesn’t want to act on it. The best thing they can do, and have been doing, is close the exploits as fast as they can so that people cannot take advantage of them. I applaud them for not recklessly banning players for it.

I have nothing against those who bought it, it just cheapens the title is all. There’s nothing wrong with that. I did every dungeon path as legitimately as I could for my own personal edification, and that’s all that really matters in that regard. I still don’t wear it because I feel some of my other titles are more impressive and speak to my skills more, but I did the work for it mostly because I’m a completeness geek; I love having things 100%.

Sure it will. Farm CS, get loot, sell loot on TP, buy Karka Shells with the money made.

Pugged it last night. Seriously, all it takes is good players, not even good team setup. Did it with only 2 warriors and the rest random classes.

Threaten is more universally regarded as a threat of attack, or as a war cry prior to engaging in a duel. Whenever someone waves at me, they are 99 times out of 100 trying to convince me of a ceasefire while they try to do something (skill point, vista, jump puzzle, whatever).

Mace of the Dragon’s Deep, purchased from the dungeon token vendor in LA for Shards of Zhaitan acquired from completing Arah explorable modes.

I’ve put a lot of hard work into getting my Frostfang so far, and I’m about 60g away from finishing it. However, once I do finish it, I’m going to sell it and be rid of it, and it’s that simple, really.

Their demand is staying relatively constant but supply is increasing due to them dropping more frequently from Orr and Moldy Bags. Prices will probably continue to drop assuming no more loot nerfs and such until they level off at some lower price.

At the beginning of the WvW week after 7 days has expired.

The problem isn’t his HP, the problem is that he becomes invulnerable and removes all conditions when he runs to the middle to do his jumping attack. What should happen instead is that he should gain an unremovable Stability boon and still be able to take damage and suffer other conditions while this happens. If it worked that way, his health pool would be much more manageable.

I am personally glad that it is how it is. I would have been very disappointed if the big, bad, super-boss of the story that we’ve been told is super scary and super tough to handle were killed by just me and my lonesome. I was actually quite relieved that it required I find some other people to complete; it made the experience much more satisfying.

I like the Grawl, Dredge, and Cliffside fractals, but I won’t start with them ever. I always start with Swamp of Water because they are the fastest, and I want at least one of my three fractals to be fast. After that, I’ll do any of the Fractals that come up.

I will admit that I sigh when I encounter Cliffside or Dredge just because they’re long, not because they’re hard.

I agree with Leablo. They are a symbol of dedication and nothing more. Thus, they are an achievement acquired through the investment of time at any given player’s time-use efficiency level.

Those items are in shorter supply, or they are more highly demanded, or a combination of the two, and people with the money to pay those prices are paying those prices. That’s all the market cares about. If you want them at a lower price, either get them when the supply is high or when demand is low. Playing the market is all about predicting how those two concepts will balance at any given time and capitalizing on it.

As far as precursors go, the statistical likelihood of getting one from the MF for anything short of 600g is pretty slim according to all the data people have collected thus far. Therefore, a price above 600g for any of them doesn’t surprise me assuming people want that particular legendary. If someone is willing to spend 800g on one, then that’s what it’s worth at that moment. That you didn’t, or couldn’t, buy when they were cheaper (lower demand / higher supply) is unfortunate. The best you can hope for is something that increases supply (ie. Karka event) or something that lowers market demand (ie. Precursor Scavenger Hunt would mean you could get your own Soulbound precursor or something by some other means).

Robert Hrouda.1327:

In the case of fractals, there is a different reward system in place for obtaining the skins and the items there. It is not the same as the dungeon reward scheme, because fractals serve a different purpose than dungeons.

I will also mention that I am not the authority on reward schemes – I see trends, play the game, experience the content, and and draft proposals to the leads and those responsible for reward structures. I have brought up proposed changes to the reward scheme for the fractals, but it is not my place to be the decider on those issues.

They serve a different purpose than dungeons? Outside of progressive difficulty and giving people room to continue up to level 50 at their leisure (ie. progression), what different purpose do they serve, and how does the current RNG-based (instead of progression-based) Fractal Weapon reward architecture fit into that? I understand you’re not the authority, but I’m curious as to your opinion (if you can provide it within the confines of your ability to speak to the community). I guess I’m genuinely curious as to the design philosophy behind the differences between dungeons and fractals.

Furthermore, it is almost intentionally a cosmetic grind right now for players who like the grind. It’s as if progress was made with the dungeon token system (of which I am a huge fan), and then intentionally steps were taken in the other direction perhaps to appease players who like raid-style rewards wherein they are forced to grind to get them. I think it’d be interesting to achieve both styles at the same time. Basically, keep the RNG aspect in there, but also add a tab to the pristine relic golem where you could spend 50 Pristine Fractal Relics for a Fractal Weapon skin of your choice.

Also, I agree with an above poster that the skins should be actual skin items instead of weapons, particularly because the weapons are confirmed by Izzy to never be used as special MF recipes in the future and that they have no stats.

I’m pretty sure my password was changed after September 12th, but is there any way for us to check short of just waiting to see if we’re forced to change it? I don’t want to change my password if I don’t have to, but will happily do so if I need to. I’d rather do it sooner than later so it doesn’t sneak up on me is why I ask.

I would like to apologize to TC for something that happened last night. Last night, we tried to take Bluelake from SoR on SBI BL, but you were at the lord’s room already. When you took the tower, I got trapped inside the wall you had broken down, and could neither get out nor you get in. I harassed people for awhile, but eventually stopped and got stuck because you guys kept keeping me in combat! We had much fun with emotes (I cried a lot because I couldn’t rejoin my guild at other locations of the map), but I’m sorry I was stuck in your wall and swear I wasn’t hacking or anything!

Besetment.9187:

Because any material currency you acquire in the game, whether its gold, badges of honour in WvW or glory in sPvP, can be obtained quicker by farming it.

It doesn’t matter whether a commander icon can be bought with gold or badges because the only “currency” you need is influence amongst fellow players. If you have enough influence, other people will listen to you and will send you gold. They will buy an icon for you. They can’t send badges because they are account bound.

You can tell a good commander from a bad one pretty easily, and it rarely has anything to do with having an icon, having bucket loads of gold or truckloads of badges. I see plenty of people in WvW that do not have icons but are exceptional commanders because they are exemplary players. Some of them don’t even know it because they are humble enough not to let ego or appearances get in the way of whats important, which is the integrity of the team.

Quoted for truth. This is absolutely correct.

I’m 0 for 17 and it doesn’t seem to have changed at all since game’s release. It’s just bad luck.

Tallis.5607:

<scratches her head>

We do not complete Fractals?

Hmmm… I think I found an exploit then, because when I kill Vile Maw, the fractal ends!

No it doesn’t, the level just increases one and you keep going. It only ends because you flee from the hub and don’t want to complete more. /lored

That said, in-game has always treated Fractals separately from dungeons. They’ve always had their own tracks, and they’ve never counted for each other’s tracks. When it says dungeons, it means dungeons that aren’t Fractals of the Mists. While that might seem counterintuitive at first, it’s just sort of how it is right now. I wouldn’t call this a bug, I’d call this working as intended. If ANet wants to change this in the future, then by all means.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

Awesome.6120:

I was being completely sarcastic Robert.

Ah, sorry about that. As a designer I click my mind into a state where I see a problem and try to mentally design a solution to it regardless of its level of sarcasm. That being said, I do like item rewards, but there’s a downside to it in that it’s not always the item you want. There are other games I have played where I would kill a boss 20-30 times and not get the specific item I wanted, and I would just have to keep at it and hope I got lucky. I much prefer the system we have right now where there is a guaranteed token reward to allow me to buy whatI want… although I have been giving thought to a system that also reflects our personal story reward structure, where you could potentially choose one of three things offered at random. Again, just thoughts, but I’m always trying to develop better ways to reward players in dungeons.

Rob, I’d like you to look at what you just said, which I have bolded for you… And then I’d like you to look at the system in place in Fractals with regards to Fractal Weapons. Your designer mind should see something wrong.

You can still do your daily even if it does have crafting. Go to your borderlands and refine 10 ingots or something and you have it done. The only thing you legit cannot do is the “Visit a Laurel Merchant” achievement, which just requires you step into any of the cities for a hot minute.

That said, February is supposed to be some big hotshot WvW patch month, which will hopefully see some WvW progression and maybe some ascended items earned from WvW. If that comes to pass, you won’t have to worry too much about losing fights due to stat differentials.

Gaile Gray.6028:

Wow, I read that and for a minute had a vision of trying to bake and mail real cookies.

Okay, you win; I like your idea a lot more than mine!

The support team should send players chocolate chip cookies (I would also accept muffins) in-game if they accidentally ban an account. This would make up for everything.

Rodgort looks amazing as it is. If they want to add to it, cool, but please none of this ethereal dragon wing stuff.

I get my daily for PvE in WvW, so it may as well be a WvW daily.

I’ll take one sentence over complete radio silence any day.

Isaiah Cartwright.8569:

We do plan on adding more stat combo to existing ascended item types as well as adding more stat combos to new types.

~Izzy @-’—-

Thank heavens! Carrion / Rampager / Knight / Cleric / Apothecary aren’t lost to history yet!

Good to hear. I look forward to the day when the gem is valued highly and gold sellers are seeing red.

Yeah, which is unfortunate. Hence all of the “hope” in my previous posts.

I think the best thing you (ANet) could do is to add as much “value” to gems as possible by adding new items / armor sets / etc. to the gem store. This encourages wealthy players to convert lots of gold to gems, driving up the value of gems, getting us closer to where everyone wants to be (putting black market traders out of business). Of course people will buy gems too, but I think there’s a lot of room for balancing the value of gems up. I’m convinced if you added things like ‘Permanent Bank Access’ items to the gem store for 10,000 gems or something high, people would go for it and it’d push things in the right direction (I know you cannot comment on what exactly ANet is thinking of adding to the store, just tossing out ideas).

Right, but as you mention, there’s an upper threshold where it no longer becomes profitable for them because the players can get so much value out of the ANet conversion. (ie. It’s not worth their time to farm/bot/etc. the gold any longer) At that point, they will liquidate what they have and no longer operate within GW2. That is the point where, if we reach it (hopefully we will), it will equalize the whole system and remove the black market guys from the equation.

I hope that eventually the gem→gold conversion becomes comparable to the black market sellers in an economy where you feel like you can actually get something useful for your money. As it stands, I don’t feel as though I get enough bang for my buck in this economy from gems, and I refuse to support black market traders, so I just don’t spend any money at all; it is frustrating when I’d like to spend the money and get some value out of it, but don’t feel that I can.

Versatile infusions work in any slot.

The key difference is that the one-time Karka event was announced. This special extra daily was not.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

is it unfair when the player next to you gets a rare drop but you only got a green? Should Anet fix this gross injustice to you every single time someone somewhere in the game got a reward that you didn’t?

If the difference is RNG, fine, that’s a part of games; green or rare or blue or nothing is a part of the game and we’re all aware of it. No problem there. If they had announced that there’d be an extra daily and I chose not to be there for it, fine, that would have been my choice. No problem there. The problem is that it was not announced and was certainly unexpected, and it is ANet’s fault that this discrepancy happened.

Yes, and I got the daily that reset at the normal time, however there was an extra reset that day, and that is the problem. When the patch came out at 4PM EST, the daily reset even though it normally is not supposed to with a patch, and people playing during those 3 hours could get 2 daily achievements in 1 day. That is the issue, and it has nothing to do with what you just posted about.

I agree with the sentiment of this thread. I was at work for those three hours, and now I feel as though I have been legitimately handicapped by having missed a misimplemented daily. I had gotten the old daily for that day the night before, and don’t think it is good practice to reset the daily with the patch like that, and wasn’t expecting that sort of a reset. The worst part about this was that there was no warning, so I had no idea that it was happening (or else maybe I’d have gotten off work a little earlier to make it). Not telling us that this would happen is even worse than letting it happen in the first place.

That first 3 hour daily should not have rewarded a daily reward, or those of us who couldn’t be there should be awarded a daily reward in compensation. For me as an achievement junkie, the 25 achievement points I missed bother me far more than the laurel I missed. Those are 25 points I can never get back.