Guild Wars 2

Fractal skins cry at this suggestion.

In-game, when you don’t know what something means, use the wiki command to learn more before making a mistake. Try this:

“/wiki Unique”

I’d chock this error up to the same error as someone who spends 42k karma on one toon for an item and tries to transfer it to another toon, not realizing that the item is Soulbound on Acquire. It sucks, but this sort of issue is user error, and there should be a refund window, but I’d mark that as a low priority compared to other issues ANet needs to resolve.

I’m fairly confident this can be done much faster using a similar utility bar setup and mainhand dagger, but this is still incredibly impressive nonetheless.

My suspicions is that the next ascended item release will come with a rise in the Fractal cap, or at least I hope that is the case.

JJBigs.8456:

Id like to see anyone besides the most seasoned of pro’s dodge the Lava Bird’s Agony Arrow always. To say a total newcomer to fotm (If you have 0 ar you are) can simply “dodge agony on all other ocasssions” is a true, but highly unlikely.

This really isn’t that hard, the player need only read up and know what to do. To be honest, if you can dodge GL’s projectile attack, you can dodge lava shaman’s arrow. Furthermore, if you have a projectile reflect or absorb, you can take care of it that way.

Anyway, I agree with some who posted above. I ran with 0 AR up to fractal level 28 because I had never gotten a ring, and it was only at that level where I had enough relics to put together a back piece. Just the other night a team of a couple people I know and some pubs succeeded at beating the Grawl fractal on L48 while I was on my Guardian who only has 5 AR. If I had been hit once, I would have died. I was never hit. I’m not trying to say I’m hot stuff or whatever, I’m trying to say that this is all totally possible for anyone to do, and if you ever intend to do high level fractals, you darned well better learn to dodge incredibly well, or you will not succeed.

When I run FotM 48, I don’t ask for any AR requirements. What matters is dodging, not your gear.

1/50 is working as intended. Let me math you to show you why. You received 3 skins out of (using your numbers) 378 chests. That equates to 1 skin in 126 chests. If we check that, the likelihood of getting zero skins in 126 is 7.84%, a non-negligible chance. For me, personally, I’ve opened around 410 boxes and received only 2 skins, the skins all coming in the last day or so, and none of them from the early days of the event. Any DR you think exists is merely perceived and is not real; there is a statistically significant chance for people to be as unlucky as I am, and it’s clearly working as intended.

Swamurabi.7890:

So what happens if you’re carrying 15 supply and you kill a yak and get 5 supply from a chest?

You lose 5 supply and go to 10. Makes perfect sense, right?

Josh Foreman.8250:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

but this particular area pushes the limitations of the engine too far in my opinion. We eventually got the achievement, but in the end it was difficult for all the wrong reasons.

You’re probably right. We don’t have much lag at the office, so I never ran into the problem. I’ll see if I can break that up a bit and compensate by getting some super annoying monkeys in there.

No, Josh, please don’t change that! That was the only part of the whole world 1 that was a legitimate challenge for me. They were all ‘edge’ jumps, which is to say I had to plan the jump perfectly and bounce in place a few times to line it up. I did it all while standing up and without inciting the lay-down animation either. I would, personally, be very sad if you changed this. If you want to make it easier, give easy mode some clouds that let you get to the top easily, but don’t change the way the normal mode plays. (Remember, players, you can get the bauble and upgrade achievements in easy mode!)

Bumping this up for the weekend! We’re always looking for interested players!

So I understand you want to fix exploits, that’s great. But making it take T5 economy to do it? I mean, that sucks, but it’s still whatever. It just means that smaller guilds will now be unable to use that feature at all, which was really helpful to them.

But what’s worse? Now it costs a merit to make a guild transport. A merit? Come on guys, you must be kidding. For a guild not abusing whatever exploit was closed, that makes these things essentially worthless. They don’t do enough to burn merits that are hard earned and critical to achieving other more important upgrades. Even big guilds won’t buy these things now because they’re just not worth the cost.

Can’t you close the exploit without ruining the functionality for everyone in-game? The way this was changed is seriously a terrible approach to address exploits.

Gafgarion.3846:

Oh look, another scared NSP warrior. Can’t wait to scrape you off of my boots after you get zerged the kitten over by us!

You really shouldn’t try so hard to make your server look as bad as you do.

This has been addressed numerous times in other threads.

maddoctor.2738:

8*18=144 am I missing something?

Firstly, that will down you, not kill you. Secondly, you don’t factor in the player’s heal skill and the regeneration boon, which in the case of a Guardian can keep him from being downed at all really easily. I have a Ranger friend who also survives pretty easily by using Troll Unguent and I, as a Necromancer, survive because I use Death Shroud to absorb a few ticks.

Yeah, they sound like light sabers.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

We always, ALWAYS win (the one time we didn’t was because of an exploit!) and as such we are always Green. This makes WvW Map completion very difficult to get.

First-World Tyrian Problems at its finest.

If you have a good heal, yes. It is actually survivable with 40 if you are a Guardian (full heal tome skill) or a Necromancer (DS).

In my opinion, the only change that really needs to be made to Fractal skins is that instead of getting a Fractal skin from the daily chest, you get a “Fractal Skin Token” that can be exchanged at BUY-5726 for a Fractal weapon skin of your choice. I think that’d ameliorate 99% of the problems players have with it. It being an RNG drop is totally acceptable in my opinion.

Gab Superstar.4059:

Out of curiosity, where do you live, to make such a statement?

Hopefully in Seattle since he’s working at the ANet HQ.

No but for reals, I also hate DST both as an engineer and as a citizen.

Remember before every dungeon had 10s drops from some bosses and 15s dropped from the final boss? Before every dungeon had that, AC was the only one that did, and AC was the most profitable to run if you were good at it. I made roughly the same gold/hour then as I do now in CoF, but CoF has the added bonus that it drops higher level loot, lodestones/cores, and tokens which can be converted into ecto. That change where every dungeon suddenly dropped a good amount of silver made it so AC was not the most profitable anymore, so I stopped running it.

Iehova.9518:

Not entirely accurate, at least I used to run AC before the changes on a daily basis; now we went TA instead. More efficient WRT dosh/hour and I refuse to farm CoF1.

Eh, I think it’s faster. The bosses all have less HP and more mechanics, which makes it less friendly for people who aren’t top-notch, but really easy for those who are. Spider dies so fast now it’s hilarious, and Kohler essentially didn’t change at all. The only real change IMO is that troll is annoying as hell now, but well, the end-bosses go down much easier by comparison, so I think it works out.

I like this Devon guy; he posts and talks to us a lot.

Other MMOs do something like that, yes, but ANet has taken a stance of specifically not doing that. Perhaps the better word is that they won’t label it, as opposed to they can’t. It’s the same reason they won’t make PvP servers and PvE servers. All servers do all things as ANet wanted. If the players want to come together and create an unofficial community of X, Y, or Z on a server, then it is their prerogative to do so, and fully up to them to maintain.

Please don’t change Guardian staff. After the recent buff, this weapon is bloody amazing for support Guardians and doesn’t need to be any better.

See how many people run around LA and Rata Sum with super skins? That’s a lot. See how many people run around LA and Rata Sum with Fractal skins? That’s not nearly as many. The rarity and obscenely crazy method of acquisition of Fractal skins adds to their prestige, which makes them more valuable to those who can get them.

I sure as hell would never use a Fractal skin if someone who had never done Fractals before could just buy it on the TP. There’s no prestige in that.

This isn’t to say that the prestige cannot be maintained while improving the system, but I sure as hell do not want to see Fractal skins on the TP ever.

Iehova.9518:

AC is dead for my guild. Thanks for that.

It was dead to my guild when they changed dungeon rewards so CoF was so much more time-efficient months ago. It had nothing to do with them revamping AC which made the whole thing arguably faster anyway.

This is actually a really good question.

It’s allowed, but Josh said at one point that he wants to discourage this type of farming, though that it’s allowed within the way things currently work.

mattbnh.9247:

I would like to see a Super Duper Monthly that gave 1000 laurels and took so much time to complete that hardcores wouldn’t have time to spare to post complaints about easy content.

The content is easy regardless of whether you’re a casual or hardcore player. The only time the content is hard is if you’re a bad or new player, and has nothing to do with how frequently you play the game beyond that.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Those who don’t should get something special. Those who can beat it on hard mode should get something very special.

Yes, please! A unique skin, or something epic that can be shown in combat would be amazing. Make sure it can’t be sold on the TP either; don’t cheapen the prestige of the item(s) by making them able to be bought with gold.

EDIT: Also for the love of God don’t make it a town clothing item. If we get rewarded for something, let us show it off in combat!

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

hmmm are you sure? O_O

Yes, Josh (guy who leads design team for SAB) spoke that he intends to discourage the farming, but that it’s not an exploit. Peruse his posts for more information.

Yes, we will. What it will include (besides more flame and frost nonsense) is unknown.

Carlos.9104:

I have been doing 28 and 38 FotM dailies every single day […]

There’s your problem. I do 48’s whenever I do FotM at all and I get a skin 1 out of 3 or so runs, depending on RNG. 28 and 38 have garbage chances to drop the skins.

Getting the skin you want is another story altogether. Anyone want one of my dozen Fractal Hammers? Anyone?

There is a time and place for fighting, and a time and place for skipping. It’s something ANet has always supported, and I hope they continue to do so. WoW instances don’t interest me because despite different mechanics, everything is the same. For me, having to decide when to run by something and when to fight it, when to break aggro, and when to hold it, is all a major part of the experience. I would not enjoy locations like TA if I were forced to fight everything because for me, the skipping and running is an integral part of why I enjoy it in the first place. It’s fun, it’s exhilarating, and it’s challenging to keep the group together, keep them all alive, and move them as one unit through the mobs. Furthermore, it’s rewarding because it speeds things up.

Remember that GW2 is not like other MMOs. The only rewards for dungeons are coin and skins (ignoring Fractals, which has no real skipping anyway). You’re not actually progressing your character any, unlike other MMOs. In that vein, the only reason people tolerated fighting everything for hours in other MMOs is because it was required to get the “best gear”. You wanted to be the best, so you did it. In GW2, you only get skins, and those skins simply aren’t worth it for most people to justify increasing the dungeon time by half an hour. Do you know what happens to the dungeons when no skipping is allowed at all and they all take significantly longer to do? Virtually no one will run them.

I’m not saying we should be able to skip everything; I agree that it’s important to fight certain enemies, and this is already in place in many dungeons with things like barriers that won’t go down unless certain enemies are dead, and so forth. There should be a healthy balance of content that rewards skipping and content that forces fighting. In my opinion, Arah and TA have perfect amounts of both right now, and although the loot could be better and there could be more WPs in TA, I think as a whole the design is unique and fun.

Silver Halliwell.4735:

Regardless of what any of you above posters say, clearly you never played GW1 and if you did it was not prior to the alcohol spam patch…

Fortunately I could just drink booze while running DoA with the effects turned off. I got it that way, and let me tell you how frustrating it was that my 10,000 minutes were wasted when they changed the way the booze title worked later in the game’s life.

No, it’s not.

You won’t get your extra gems spent back because you confirmed the purchase. ANet support does not undo player-made mistakes. That said, you will have received your bank slot expansions in the mail. Make sure your mail box is empty and they will show up (if they haven’t already).

While we’re on the subject of ridiculous bounties, can we talk about Diplomat Tarban?

We had him last night, and while we succeeded, it was a totally miserable experience. Attacking him inflicts stacks of confusion, he inflicts stacks of confusion in aoes, and really, he just spams confusion. Given that confusion deals damage when you attempt to res someone, too, you can kill yourself just trying to pick people up. Literally the only way to avoid confusion that gets reapplied that frequently is, you guessed it, to do absolutely nothing and just stand there! I don’t really mind his mechanics all that much, I just want to see the number of confusion stacks toned down so that more than half the fight isn’t spent waiting for stacks to wear off before you attack him. No amount of condition cleansing bar condition immunity can really contend with the number of stacks he drops.

I support this suggestion.

No server can be officially labeled as something other than what it is, a server. TC is the ‘unofficial’ RP server because more people do it there than anywhere else, but you have to expect that when you guys are in T2 in WvW, you’re also going to get people playing for other reasons. There is no reason to deny them the right and support they deserve to play what they want while you enjoy the same luxuries!

If memory serves, it’s 10000 drinks, not 1000. Anyway, we all saw this bug fix coming; it was a blatant exploit to abuse it. For what it’s worth, I got most of my thirst slayer achievement by buying the booze with karma. That way it doesn’t cost you a dime (karma is mostly worthless anyway).

It will be released eventually. Josh said the success of SAB has meant his team has some permanence as a part of the Living Story group, and that they are working on Hard Mode right now.

jaycatano.6738:

I think we are a little better suited for tier 3.5 but we’ll see how this next week goes. Hope most of our regulars come back. Been seeing a lot of new people recently which is good also but we’re gonna need our more hardcore players next week lol.

We had a similar issue with T4 and T5, so I know what you mean. A long-running joke in my guild is that we’re a T4.5 server, with enough presence to mutilate T5 and not enough presence to really keep T4 in check. In reality, I think SBI is pretty well-matched with CD, we just need to find a third server that fits the match-up well and things will be fine. Either way, I hope it goes over well; as much as I enjoy having half your guys’ score all of the time, I am looking forward to a new match-up.

The chance of not getting a skin in 75 chests is actually pretty decent, to be honest (22%). Heck, there’s a 13% chance of not getting a skin after 100 runs! Basically, the take away from that is that you shouldn’t necessarily expect a skin after 50 runs because statistically RNG could hate you.

I, for one, am excited to have a rematch against SoS. It’ll be good times, and maybe they’ll have less of a global presence than Mag, so the match will feel more even. I hope you guys on Mag don’t get “rotflstomped” and find yourself with a decent match-up as well. I think you’re much better suited to T3 than to T4, much like how we are much better suited to T4 than T5 (I still kind of feel bad for DR/IoJ having to deal with us).

Avenge.1478:

DevonCarver.5370:

Agreed. It’s a complicated problem to solve as it touches a lot of broad systems, so I can’t guarantee it will happen soon, but I would very much like for us to alleviate this some way or another.

Loot bags and chests gained from kills could be alleviated by placing a large chest that is spawned at your servers spawn on the map that you can collect your loot from whenever you please. The chest can open up like a bank-esque system where you can withdraw what you want a discard the rest. The chest does not disappear at log off, but rather is saved in case you need to quickly bail out of WvW. Badges would be treated as currency and instead of taking up a slot in the loot chest, they instead are represented just as gold is in a players personal bank.

This is a very cool idea. So long as it didn’t auto-discard my loot for me and just built up until I did something with it (and was withdraw only, no depositing), this would be amazing and would keep me from worrying about my loot bags after fights I am winning and during fights I’m losing.

For a casual player, this month’s is really easy:

• Kill veterans (You do this everywhere you go and will get it over a month)
• Do events (You do these everywhere you go and will get it over a month)
• Do jump puzzles (They have to be UNIQUE jump puzzles, so just do them as you explore zones or do whatever. A level 42 player with only one character in my guild got this one last night just playing the game and doing them when she could)
• Do your Dailies (Seriously, they’re easy and after 4 of them you get credit for your monthly!)

Really, this is about as friendly as it gets to casual players.

It has to go through QA, so I would expect it with the April update near the end of the month.

This is one of those “We created SkyNet and brought about the end of humanity” moments.

Josh Foreman.8250:

Special items that are super hard to get… will most likely be stuff that stays in the Box. Otherwise the amount of community outrage would shake the foundations of the earth.

I think being able to show off that you’re among the best of the best jumpers is an important thing. Right now, the achievements and everything can all be done and achieved in infantile mode, or with little real investment / challenge. There’s nothing difficult enough that I feel like it merits wearing as either a title or a prestige weapon skin. I mean, I can farm CoF 1 for a couple hours and just buy one of the skins on the TP. There’s no prestige in that.

There should absolutely be something that is specifically for rewarding the best of the best. There are plenty of “for everyone” rewards already; give us challenge-seekers a real goal to go after please!

Josh Foreman.8250:

Yeah, we removed the minimap for a reason. There are several factors that make 8 and 16 bit games feel the way they do. One of them is forcing the player to really learn their environment.

The only thing I genuinely miss from the minimap is the clock that told me the hour of day. I now actually have to alt-tab out of GW2 while playing SAB to make sure I’m not playing at like 3AM or something crazy.

Josh Foreman.8250:

It’s 1 in 50.

ITT: ANet tells us a drop rate, everyone is happy, and the virtual world economy doesn’t collapse. Seriously, go have a cup of coffee with John Smith and teach him your ways.