Guild Wars 2

That would be awesome. I’m in the same boat.

I think what misled me was the March 18 Q&A:

Q: Will we be able to craft PvP related gear after 3/18?
A: Yes, you will still be able to craft PvP related gear. This build is a maintenance step that will only remove Glory and increase rank points earned.

Q: Will we be able to sell PvP materials to npc vendors similar to tournament tickets?
A: These materials are not being removed as part of the maintenance build. In this update we are only removing glory and making an adjustment to the amount of rank points earned.

Nothing they said was untrue. I mistakenly thought that the PvP crafting materials would somehow be incorporated into the new system. Otherwise, I probably would have loaded up on item tokens.

Still, it would be really nice if we could somehow use gold to buy the item tokens so we could use up the piles of everything else we’ve accumulated.

Meglobob.8620:

When we reach 10k and 5k does that mean we never after do any daily and monthly achievements ever again?

What I’m wondering is how we’re going to get some of those higher tiers of the achievement rewards. I get that new points will be added for Living Story stuff, and there are a lot of PvP/WvW (heh) points to work toward, but the dailies have represented… what, maybe 15-20 possible points per day? That’s going to slow things down quite a bit, considering that most other achievements have no more than 15-20 for the entire track.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

wait, we can’t mix and match the pvp amulet and jewels anymore?

: (

I think the new amulets are expected to cover the different stat combos, though I don’t know yet which (or how many) new combinations they’re going to add.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Fluffball.8307:

Evan Lesh.3295:

It shall be done. If I can remember when I’m at my desk on Monday. Maybe.

Fluffball, can you think of some iconic way of showing health state in the UI?
The healthbar is pretty tiny, but it miiight be able to fit some text over it like “Downed”, “Defeated”, or “Deathshroud”. Though for other languages it may not fit. That could also make the actual health value hard to see.

Yup. No matter what type of color blindness people have, we can see shades really well (better than “normal” people.) So if a health bar is 100% white in one case and 40% white in a death shroud case, there is no mistaking it.

But pure color like the wurm pheromones or the WvW map is just not readable for many of us (BTW thanks to whoever upped the contrast on WvW colors several months ago.)

That’s pretty interesting. So how well can you read the shades of green used for the double healthbar while targeting a necro in deathshroud? The deathshroud color is a more desaturated green.

lol at the wvw colors. That partially an accident because wvw and pvp shared team colors. I quite like the newer blue. (maybe because I was the one that updated it)

One of my best friends in high school was red/green colorblind, and he was a machine when it came to finding four-leaf clovers. I think he said it was something to do with better contrast.

Also, I would love it if the party UI distinguished between health and death shroud, and not just in PvP. I’ve wasted a lot of guardian heals on my wife’s death shrouded necro, only to facepalm when she comes out of it.

Is anyone still doing this?

Mirta.5029:

Ashen.2907:

1) It is already possible for your character to get married

Well help from Anet would be nice.

There are no clothing that you could use as a wedding dress/ suit
There’s no two person animations (like holding hands or kissing)
and then there’s no visible accessory/ title/ head gear/ anything that could show that you’ve done in.

You need that much help to get married?

Human default town clothes would be acceptable with the right dye job.

And honestly, the most marriage-appropriate animations would probably affect the “Teen” rating.

I’m already married to another player. I’ve met plenty of other players who were married, too.

DietPepsi.4371:

Heraldusluminare.2946:

I never got the concept of a dedicated marriage system in a combat-oriented game.

Unrelated to the marriage thing; I wish this game was less of a combat-oriented game.

I agree to some extent. I always feel like such a thug in this game, no matter what I’m doing. “Save the village? Sure, I’ll go slaughter some stuff.” “Collect things to power some new invention? Yeah, I can kill elementals.” “Take the ranch back from bandits? By killing them, naturally.” “Help the quaggans raise crabs? Awesome, I’ll kill that skale.” “Pitch in at the mine? Okay, I’ll flush out some dredge and kill them.” “Help power the lights of Caledon Forest? Okay, I’ll smash fireflies.”

All this killing, of course, by manipulating complex magical energies and other forces of creation.

It felt especially awkward in the asura personal story when Zojja shows off asuran mental superiority by constantly talking about beating people up.

There are some exceptions to the combat rule, though, in the form of certain Renown Hearts that most players despise. There are occasionally unique fight mechanics that challenge players in some way, but again, they’re “fight” mechanics.

I understand why, though. It’s a competitive, skill-based game. We’re competing against each other, against the environment, or both. We can’t very well have “hugging contests.” But all the same, I feel bad when my AoE hits a neutral or an ambient creature.

Allie Murdock.8152:

Thighum.7295:

Allie Murdock.8152:

Ok guys, just wanted to clarify a few things.

Permastow is not impossible. I never meant to give that impression, so I apologize if I did. However, as far as priorities go for the Ranger, it is not high on the list. Why? Because it would require an entire re-balance of Ranger, but if we re-balanced, then the players that do play with the pet would be OP. See the dilemma there?

Thank goodness. I am confused about something though, why would perma stow make pets op? I figured that something like a damage boost would only occur while the pet was stowed. I don’t think that the skills themselves would need to be changed, just a %stat boost that would give the approximate damage that the pet gave.

Allie Murdock.8152:

The reason why I latched onto the aspect idea was because it was an option that seemed we could maybe work around. Rather than having to rebalance the whole class, we’d just have to balance the aspects to be similar to what the pet does damage-wise. That seemed a little more viable.

I thought that aspects was basically the equivalent of perma-stowing with a stat boost, an F2 skill by family and glowing particles to show which aspect you were in. I don’t really understand how this is dramatically different from perma stowing with a damage boost while stowed.

Perma stow wouldn’t make pets OP. In rebalancing for permastow, it would make those that still want to play with the pet op. THAT IS, unless we design something that gives the player a boost to balance it out.

The aspects I think were a little different. They talked about having specific bonuses based on the pet that the player was using. That is different from just giving a damage boost, which could end up being difficult to balance.

I think what he meant was that if you gave the ranger an appropriate stat boost only while the pet was stowed, then there would be no need to rebalance in the first place.

From what I’ve seen, Mist Form appears to be a must-have skill. I can understand its use as a panic button in PvE, and it’s great for getting into a tower or keep that’s under siege in WvW.

But the most annoying thing I’ve seen in sPvP is something I call the “fogstomp.” Mist Form renders the elementalist invulnerable to all skill effects, so you can’t be knocked back, stunned, etc. I was playing a necromancer against a team with 3 elementalists, and whereas I could usually use my fear skills to interrupt a stomp and revive a teammate, these elementalists all used Mist Form and were completely uninterruptible. Seriously, I thought it was annoying when thieves would stealth-stomp, but at least they were still subject to non-targeted skill effects. The fogstomp is much worse, because it puts the other team in the infuriating position of not being able to do anything to stop what’s happening, regardless of skill(s). But I digress.

TL;DR: Mist Form is useful in a wide variety of situations.

Allie Murdock.8152:

This means no more bounce chests.

Aww… I liked the character models the way they were!

My wife also received no loot from these bosses, and she was so upset by it that she complained enough to motivate me to find this thread and post in it.
But now the hologram’s gone invulnerable for about 10 minutes (and counting), so she’s pretty mad.
I haven’t gotten to try the event yet; I was called away just as it was starting.

Vol.7601:

He’s not insane, he’s just drinking Elonian Wine and encouraging others to do the same.

The game needs more gold sinks, anyway.

He’s playing a game.

John Smith.4610:

insanemaniac.2456:

John Smith.4610:

Actually 9 have sold in the last 24 hours.

omg specific market velocity info

i can feel the chains of your NDA loosening

I have two just in case the first one breaks :P

This was interesting when, at first glance, I read it as “DNA loosening.” And yes, of course you have two, since most eukaryotic DNA is double-stranded. But why all this concern over John Smith’s mitosis?

Well, why not?

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Sarlack.4096:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

I actually play all 8 classes, I’ve helped start multiple metas!

I play terror necro, most every ele spec, d/p s/p and s/d thief mainly. But I tinker around with every class like I said.

That screenshot tho! WP!

Seeing as you play “All” classes in SPVP…what do you run on your Ranger?

Well, I used to play a lot of traps and beastmaster back in the day, but then randomly one day I started using Spirits to counter-pick old meta back point play. My first rendition of it was 0 10 30 30 0 rabid before showing it to Vyndetta. He optimized it into 10 0 30 30 0 with carrion and put it in a team fight role.

Either way I play these:
Traps: 0 30 30 10 0 or 0 30 30 5 5
Beastmaster: 10 0 30 0 30/0 10 30 0 30/0 0 30 10 30
Spirits: 0 10 30 30 0/10 0 30 30 0/0 0 30 30 10

Hee hee… “Powerr ranger.”

Josh Davis.6015:

Prysin.8542:

y u no Power Ranger?

I’m not mighty morphin’ enough.

Hah! I knew someone would get it.

Lord Kuru.3685:

It’s all fixed. (Tested with inquest and undead potions.)

Thanks!

Tyler Chapman.1832:

Rangers have some cool things coming too! Much needed power ranger lub! It’ll be all positive reactions right?!!

It’s Morphin’ Time!

Sandpit.3467:

This too is my last JP and I am standing on a ledge staring at floating cargo, no ship!

If the cargo still floats there, maybe the ship is invisible. Have you tried jumping on it?

draconx.3102:

Could it be… could it be… that they changed potions to actually reduce damage and the tooltips are still wrong!?

I don’t understand what you mean by that. If the tooltips say that damage is reduced, and they changed the potions to actually reduce damage, then how could the tooltips still be wrong? Do you mean that they reduce damage by the wrong percentage?

Tamasan.6457:

“Powerful Potion of Slaying Scarlett’s Armies”

Anet is trolling us.

Yes. Yes, they are.

Meryn.6875:

b

I disgree. I think these potions would have to be “+10% vs, -10% from” in order to justify the cost of materials. They’re not exactly cobbled together from copper ore and green wood logs, after all.

Jeffrey Vaughn.1793:

Quick update: there’s a fix planned for a future update, but I can’t give an ETA on when it will be rolled out to Live.

Thanks for the update! We’ve been hoping to hear from you guys for several months. Glad to hear that you’re on it!

Astralporing.1957:

Rajani Isa.6294:

Meryn.6875:

Sligh.2789:

I just wish someone would actually notice this thread

Thanks to all these bumps its nearly 100% on the front page, im sure the devs notice, they just ignore it, thinking its taken care of. At least thats what I think, and untill I see another red response I’ve got every reason to assume im correct

So either Devs waste development time continually posting “Still Broken” posts to the forums, interfering with time that might fix the issues complained about, or they talk once and wait until something new comes up to post again which means they take more time to work on the game. Which would you prefer?

I’d prefer devs posting a comprehensive list of recognized bugs (with their status – “fixed in next update”, “in progress”, “queued”, “not worked on atm” etc, and severity – “minor”, “major”, “gamebreaking” etc) once a month. It would achieve two goals – it would let us know what the devs know (as sometimes they have shown they can be unaware of bugs that were present since beginning, and continuously mentioned on boards), and it would put pressure on them to actually work on them, instead of ignoring them for months until something brings it to their attention again.
And i definitely would not consider this a “waste of development time”, since they obviously need to have a list like that for internal consumption anyway, If they don’t, then making one would actually improve matters.

That’s brilliant! I would love that kind of transparency. I think it would foster all kinds of positivity in this forum.

GrandmaFunk.3052:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Since I’ve gone all-orichalcum (too many resources ruined by absentmindedly equipped mithril tools), that tells me nothing. It’s like, "Okay, so this Orichalcum Mining Pick is exactly the same as the one I’m currently using. Hmm, I wonder how many more uses I have on that one? Too bad it doesn’t give me that information here.

I’m really puzzled as to how that information would provide any use at all.

so you have two ori picks that have different amounts of uses left… what changes by knowing which is which?

If I only have a couple of uses left, I’ll grab another at the next merchant I visit. I don’t often remember to check my gathering tools in my hero panel (which I usually open only to swap traits or check the daily achievement options), but I hover my mouse over things in my inventory quite often.

I had more reasons when I originally thought of this suggestion, but that was several days ago. It seemed really helpful at the time, but I wasn’t going to say, “Hey, guys, don’t aggro anything, I have to post something on the forum.” Now I’ve remembered to post it, but I forgot what circumstances prompted it. It still seems better to have it than to not have it.

Donari.5237:

I think the issue here isn’t knowing what tier you have so much as how many uses you have left, without having to open the hero panel.

Donari is right, though it also extends to knowing which pick you’re equipping.

Khisanth.2948:

Unless the person already has the inventory opened I don’t really see much difference between opening the inventory and hovering over it or just opening the hero panel. Either way it would require opening a window and looking.

I don’t know if I’m representative of the population, but I check my inventory pretty frequently. I’m not checking my inventory to see how many uses I have left on my gathering tools, of course; however, if I have such tools sitting in my inventory as backups, I can hover over them and see what I have currently equipped. Since I’ve gone all-orichalcum (too many resources ruined by absentmindedly equipped mithril tools), that tells me nothing. It’s like, “Okay, so this Orichalcum Mining Pick is exactly the same as the one I’m currently using. Hmm, I wonder how many more uses I have on that one? Too bad it doesn’t give me that information here. Time to open up that other window. It’s a good thing the GW2 UI is so streamlined, eh?”

Actually … assuming someone is carrying one of every tier already why not just have the game automatically use the one that meets the minimum requirement with the fewest uses left?

I think that would be taking far too much control away from the players. While we may not see a problem with it, there are millions of players, some of whom undoubtedly wouldn’t like it. Making it optional seems like way more trouble than it’s worth, considering all the other things they’d be putting on hold to script something like that. It sounds simple, but I can personally think of other options I’d rather see added to the game (i.e. ability to hide certain UI elements, or the ability to transmute trinkets— or come to think of it, some way to turn transmutation stones into transmutation crystals).

When hovering the mouse over a gathering tool, the “Currently Equipped” tool is displayed without the number of uses remaining. I think it would be helpful if that number could be displayed somehow in the mouse-over “Currently Equipped” description.

This would also be helpful — perhaps even more so — if shown in the options presented when right-clicking the slot in the [H] panel, also, in order to distinguish between the Orichalcum Mining Pick with 2 uses left (you know, the one you un-equipped to use up that Copper Mining Pick in a low-level area) and the fresh one with 100 uses, for instance. Maybe if it offered something like the options below.

When right-clicking the Mining Tool slot, instead of:

• Equip Orichalcum Mining Pick
• Equip Orichalcum Mining Pick
• Unequip Copper Mining Pick

It could show this:

• Equip Orichalcum Mining Pick (2)
• Equip Orichalcum Mining Pick (100)
• Unequip Copper Mining Pick (91)

I don’t know how hard that would be to code, but I’m sure the folks in the UI department would know how to get it done. I can think of ways I’d do it in programs I’ve worked on, but as we must always remind ourselves, most of us don’t actually know anything about the specifics of most of the coding of the GW2 client.

Wethospu.6437:

Keep in mind that questioning developers may instantly give you a two week ban and 1 hour flood control/topic creating removed/private messaging removed for months.

As they have said here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Guild-Wars-2-Forum-Moderation-Updates

So I suggest keeping it nice.

This comment reads like a red post.

Just sayin’.

Maybe one of us should test them again, just to be sure they aren’t laughing at our failure to notice.

draconx.3102:

Sariel V.7024:

draconx.3102:

Are +5% damage potions better than superior sharpening stones or master maintenance oil?

Depends on your stats and whether you’re based on condition damage (potion all the way) or power damage. Comparing a tier 2 potion to a tier 6 sharpening stone or oil… almost certainly not.

The context was that someone said to use +5% damage potions to avoid taking any extra damage. It was not an accident that I compared these potions to tier 6 stones/oils.

The point is that the tier 6 stones/oils are probably better than crappy potions if you don’t want to increase the damage you take, but I didn’t (and still don’t) feel like working out which is actually better.

A price comparison may also be relevant.

I think tier 2 potions may be a little cheaper than tier 6 stones/oils/crystals.

Thanks! This was handy.

Atlas.9704:

MatthewMedina.5419:

Dear lord, what have I done?

You have given us Ham and Braham liking ham.
Now you must complete this in the most logical way possible:

On April Fool’s you give away meat maces, Braham must wield one for a while.
evil cackle

So, linguistically, I’m going to propose that the prefix “Bra-” signifies “one who likes.”

JayMack.8295:

Oh man, I really hope in 4 months+ time, we forget about this thread, and we’re talking to Braham and he casually mentions he loves ham.

I wonder if Rox likes green eggs?

Maybe devourer eggs? I wonder what color those fry up…

CureForLiving.5360:

Since Braham is a Norn you’d expect that he’d do most of his eating in Hoelbrak so not sure how a ham shortage in krytra would impact him too much.

… Of course I must admit I don’t see too many farms in the Shiverpeaks (in fact what does the Norn diet exist of? Other than mead) so I’d imagine they rely heavily on imports. So that would support the initial argument.

However if a large portion of their food comes from abroad what do they export? They have to export something to cover the costs of the imports. Mead? I know they’ve got plenty of Mead. Paradoxically since they don’t remember seeing too many bees. In fact Shiverpeaks doesn’t seem to have any seasons other than winter so there goes bee keeping and mass farming.

So I guess if he likes the ham it’s probably wild boar (does wild boar still count as ham?), and his access to it would be limited.

I think the majority of their food comes from hunting or foraging. Also, this.

I logged into a character who has a Tricolor Key that I had forgotten about. Is there any use for this now?

I’d like to know if you’re planning to make further changes to these items. Do you consider this adjustment to be a final solution to that particular problem, or might you consider reducing the cooldown if you decide that it might be reasonable to do so?

Less objectively, I think non-buff consumable items in general have been nerfed to the point of being pointless. I’m not talking about effectiveness, either; I’m talking about opportunity. I once filled an 18-slot bag with them because at one time I thought they might be fun; I still have an 18-slot bag full of them because when I say, “Hey, I should try using one of those items! It would be something new and exciting in this fractal I’ve done a bajillion times,” I’m inevitably disappointed to find that I’m not allowed to use them.

I wonder if this will be fixed on Tuesday.

Dahkeus.8243:

milo.6942:

Can someone break that statement down and explain what it means and how gw2 compares with non skill-based games

Success is primarily decided by the actions you perform more than the gear you have.

I.e. if you beat someone in PvP, it’s because you outplay them and not because you mindlessly grinded out more powerful gear. If you clear the dungeon, it’s because you outplayed the enemies with a coordinated group and not because you have epic gear to 1-shot everything. (small exception for Fractals)

The caveat is that profession choice can make more of a difference than gear in certain cases, but that’s inevitable in any game that has multiple professions.

I think this post best answers the original question. Almost everything else in the thread appears to be criticism of the difficulty of PvE, which wasn’t what the OP asked.
(There were some on-topic posts here and there, but they were the minority.)

Thunderbrew.7034:

So many people in zergfest have zero skill and would not survive
in PvP.

I think this is a big part of what they mean.

Other MMOs are largely time-based, meaning you have to put in the time to get the gear to win. In GW2, all players have the best gear as soon as they enter the sPvP lobby, so it’s based on skill, not on how many hours you’ve played.

In PvE, of course, you could ride along in a giant mob, but in my opinion that’s not really what the game is about. I rarely do “world events” because the huge crowd makes actual gameplay mechanics far less fun.

When you play in a smaller group, you’ll see that there’s still a huge difference between someone who knows the mechanics (has the “skill”) and someone who doesn’t but has good gear.

grayson.6589:

or maybe #7- They HAVE forgotten about us.

I think it is likely #7. Josh transferred, the holidays & Wintersday patch were coming up, and this issue slipped through the cracks. It doesn’t make Anet horrible people, it makes them human. But now that this thread has been keeping on the first few pages most of the week, they need to acknowledge it slipped through the cracks and give us an update on a fix. Here’s hoping the bumping will get them to acknowledge they did forget about us & will sort out this bug asap.

Yeah, I used to think that they had just forgotten. Now, however, I think “forgetting about us” would require not reading the bug forum, which is why I listed that instead.

Lord Kuru.3685:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on at this point. As I see it, there are several possibilities:

1. They’re reading this thread and know about the problem, but they don’t have any updates and don’t want to admit it.
2. They don’t read the bug forum at all.
3. They have been reading and do care, but they’re waiting for the guy in charge of this one to get back from a 2-month vacation so they’ll know what’s going on, and they don’t want to tell us anything because they don’t want to admit that the reason for the delay is they don’t have anyone actively working on it.
4. They don’t have anyone actively working on it because they don’t care, and they don’t want to tell us that because they know we do care.

I don’t know which one it is. Maybe there’s some option I haven’t thought of, some scenario in which they really do care but are somehow incapable of responding in any way. Oh! I know…

5. A bug in the forum system currently prevents anyone from ArenaNet replying to a topic in the Game Bugs forum.

6. They’re putting a ton of effort into it but just can’t seem to find the bug. Those minus signs sure are tricky!

But if that were the case, they could tell us “It’s still on the radar!” like they do sometimes.

Nar.8327:

KukoDane.1327:

Im a member of the Tquila Killer Squad, and each time we do this evetn, i try to get this achievement, “Tail Flail” but without luck.
I have tried different dodges and many different places, but so far I have been unavailable to get the achievement. Some say it is bugged and some claim that it is not but just hard to get. Today i had my 60 Tequatl kill and my sick of never getting this archievement. Is there any advice someone can give me on “how” to get it? One of my friends suggested that I should just file a report of this and a ticket to Anet but i dont know if that would help.
Thanks for listening to me and my (somewhat) angry thoughts about this
And thanks for any advice with “how” to proceed.

I successfully dodged the tail swing, got the “evade” floater, got no achievement. I then got feared into the water a moment later and got the achievement.

It’s really buggy. For now, just try hanging around back there and randomly running around and/or dodging. I’ve heard a lot of other people say they got it when they got feared.

I haven’t managed to get it yet, but from your description, the fear may be a coincidence. I’ve noticed that with the Toxic Seedling achievements, there appears to be a delay of several seconds between harvesting the seedling and the counter increasing. It could be something similar with the tail swipe, and maybe the fear is unrelated but happens in the interval between jumping the tail and the achievement counter checking it.

Just a thought.

Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on at this point. As I see it, there are several possibilities:

1. They’re reading this thread and know about the problem, but they don’t have any updates and don’t want to admit it.
2. They don’t read the bug forum at all.
3. They have been reading and do care, but they’re waiting for the guy in charge of this one to get back from a 2-month vacation so they’ll know what’s going on, and they don’t want to tell us anything because they don’t want to admit that the reason for the delay is they don’t have anyone actively working on it.
4. They don’t have anyone actively working on it because they don’t care, and they don’t want to tell us that because they know we do care.

I don’t know which one it is. Maybe there’s some option I haven’t thought of, some scenario in which they really do care but are somehow incapable of responding in any way. Oh! I know…

5. A bug in the forum system currently prevents anyone from ArenaNet replying to a topic in the Game Bugs forum.

Zietlogik.6208:

Bart Weird.9671:

Where are “Guild Wars” in Guild Wars 2?
Can’t find them,
there is not even a guild tag shown in the gw2 ladders.
Is there any button, i can challenge other guilds in spvp to show off my guild is the best?
Ps. I want my gold cape!

Any advice or help?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/The_Guild_Wars

Guild Wars 2 is so named because it’s the sequel to Guild Wars.

Guild Wars was called such for two (probably related) reasons.

1. Guilds played a much larger role in PvP, particularly in guild battles (“GvG”). Calling the game “Guild Wars” described the central focus of the game’s PvP scene.
2. A very obscurely mentioned (and practically insignificant) piece of lore was the “Guild Wars,” which ended at the very beginning of the first chapter of the game. It had very little bearing on anything that happened in the story of any part of the games, and if the player never heard of the “Guild Wars” in the game’s lore, nothing would be lost.

Personally, I think the lore was probably written in to justify naming the game for a PvP feature. To support my theory, I postulate that a handful of NPCs mentioning the event is insufficient reason to name the entire franchise after it. Otherwise, they would have named it something like “Chosen,” a term which actually became important in the storyline. Calling it “Guild Wars,” though, meant any RPG fan would know what it was about— one group of players competing against another.

The guild functionality of the first game was very different. Only one guild could be joined at a time, there were no guild buffs, and guild missions hadn’t been invented yet; however, guild battles and guild halls gave us options that are currently nonexistent.

Regardless, the name has been set and can’t easily be changed. Only the game can be changed to fit the name, but that probably isn’t a priority at this time. (It’s encouraging to see Josh’s comment above, though.)

I don’t understand…

How can so many people complain that Diamond Skin is broken and elementalists are missing? If they’re missing, how do we know that Diamond Skin is bad? Is it because Diamond Skin has failed to yield an abundance of elementalists in PvP?

lakdav.3694:

My main gripe with the whole extra-fast subsonic communication thing is the fact that skritt are still talking to each other occasionally in a way that we understand them, usually in a dumbed down level in a small group, or more civilized in the middle of Skrittsburg. If they can communicate concepts and ideas and plans in a subsonic level and speed, why are they even talking to each other like we do, with words of the common tongue?

That’s a great point, and I’m humbled to have not thought of it myself. Anything they would want to say would already have been said more quickly over the high-speed inter-skritt network, in theory. A human analogy may be difficult here, but I like a challenge!
We can’t really compare this to sending a letter through “snail mail” rather than email, because there are some (at least mostly) valid reasons to send a paper copy of a document. Think carefully before you request that any court summons be sent to you via email, for instance. (Fortunately, we can save a PDF copy of that guide on what to do in the event of an extended power failure, so we don’t have to worry about keeping backup copies of important documents.)
It’s not really the difference between sending a text vs. email, either. Text messages are generally much shorter for most people.
I think that in practice, it’s more like the difference between a dial-up modem and a gigabit LAN. (This gives the extra bonus of adding the words “local area” to the analogy, which seems apt.) Why in the world would you call up another computer on your network over V.92 when you could do exactly the same thing, whatever it was, about 200,000 times faster? (Don’t be cute and say “fax,” because that could totally be sent as a PDF email attachment.)

This is totally inconsistent. The only excuse I can even think of (albeit with my non-skritt brain) is that they like to hear their own voices. However, I don’t think that’s the motivator when a skritt points at me and shouts, “Quick, kill it!” In fact, I can’t think of anything gained by such a statement. Anything it might communicate to other skritt should already be known to them over the Skrittnet, and shouting at me like that abandons any element of surprise they may have gained.

Actually, why would the skritt have voices at all? If the inaudible communication channel is so high and mighty (that’s the technical term, I assure you), then their audible voices would only be used for non-skritt interfacing. As I understand it, they only interacted with the asura until fairly recently, and those encounters were generally unfriendly. Their vocal cords should be almost vestigial by now. Perhaps they were merely atrophied, and they quickly redeveloped when other races got involved.

… like we have that 90% ‘unused’ part of our human brain that governs reflex actions, heartbeat, processing what information the 5 senses give, managing muscle movements to the smallest level and so on. High level programs are much more sophysticated and govern the actual interaction with the outside world. Analising, conceptualising, planning, calculating, pretty much everything that makes them sentient and intelligent. Take the high level programs as the 10% of the human brain that we use, the part that does the thinking, the part that reads and understands these words.
[…]
Its like if we would subconsciously adapt the reflex actions of our bodies from those in the same room, just as they do the same. We breath the same amount of air and at the same pace, our hearts beat the same way. As much bodily functions become synchronised as possible. Subconscious routines communicate between us, still subconsciously. The 90% of these functions shrinks to 70%, and the 10% of actual thinking and intelligence grows to 30%. We are not aware of the communication between our subconscious minds, it just makes us smarter when we are close to each other.

According to my neuroanatomy professor in medical school, the whole “90% unused” thing is a myth. What most folks consider “unused” is actually the white matter of the brain. Gray matter makes up most of the cerebral cortex, and most of the thinking goes on there. It’s gray(ish) because it has a high density of neuronal cell bodies, relative to the axons that make up the white matter. Those axons connect to other parts of the brain, carrying signals to and from the gray matter.

Basically, it would be like someone saying “90% of the Internet’s physical structure is unused,” when they’re actually referring to the cables connecting the computers themselves. Sure, those ethernet cables and copper lines aren’t doing a lot of computing, but that doesn’t mean they’re not being used for the purpose that inspired their design.

NinjaChris.9340:

Also: Most of your points take humans as example – understandable since we are the only sentient species we know – but what applies to humans doesn’t necessarily apply to skritt, as you say yourself.

[OOC]
Remember that the whole concept of the skritt race was conceived by humans, and those humans added them to the game. It’s difficult for humans to invent sentient beings whose thought processes are alien to our own, because when we try to imagine how they would think, any result we can come up with will be based on our own thought processes and therefore inherently not alien to our own thought processes. In order to succeed at such a task, we have to be intentionally irrational (in a way), which can easily be too confusing or random to be interesting.

Real-life examples can be based on non-human thought processes, too, though research on those is still lagging behind the human model. What we know is that more complex brains are more susceptible to mob-style aggression— young dolphin males sometimes form gangs to kitten females, groups of chimps have gang wars, etc. In fact, according to researchers, everyone becomes easier to understand when you think of people as animals. Each of us (human, “animal,” etc.) is a conscious individual following a behavioral pattern appropriate for our species.

In order to understand the skritt, we have to relate them to what we know. Because if we can only relate them to what we don’t know, then we’ll never come to understand them.
[/OOC]

Dustfinger.9510:

I don’t think that skritt was corrupted. Atleast it didn’t have the corrupted green aura. So it would be no more corrupted than the asura next to it. But that wasn’t an example of their intelligence, it was an indication of how they think. Which, I think is a relevant point.

Yeah, I’m with you on this one. There’s another quote that I really liked, too, if I can find it…

(Some time later…)
Ah, here it is:
From Help the skritt defend Skrittsburgh East End:

Our sentries bibble-babble always the story of you coming to our cave. One say you carry fifty wounded skritt tied to your head as you jumped over lava. One say you break a fire-troll over your knee and used its pebbles for gunpowder. I know not if these deeds are real, but to us, they are true. Not the same, real and true. True you feel inside. Always follow what is true.

—Sentry-skritt Bordekka

It may not give us any new revelations of the inner workings of their thought processes, but to me, it supports the “too many lines, not enough angles” philosophy. Asura (among others) think in more of a monochrome than do the skritt. The skritt even go so far as to distinguish between “real” and “true.”

That’s deep, fellas.

That’s deep.

NinjaChris.9340:

Yes, having too little time to process a flood of information deteriorates judgement in humans; skritt on the other hands communicate so fast that there is more than enough time to evaluate different outcomes.

But my point was that faster communication allows less time to evaluate different outcomes, not more, because it generates more outcomes to evaluate.

As another point that I meant to include in my initial post, there was a dialog between an asura and a skritt in the cave full of chaos energy. The asura tried to convince the skritt that the chaos magic was causing bad things to happen, and therefore they should move away from it. The skritt said something along the lines of, “Always cause and effect with you people. You asura think you’re so smart, but you’re not skritt-smart.” Then he said, “Too many lines, not enough angles!”
Something about that made me think there’s more to it than gibberish. I think the skritt process logic differently. However, in trying to return to the topic, I’ll say this: I think maybe part of the “skritt communication” thing is due to their short attention spans. If one skritt thinks (perhaps “talks,” or “broadcasts”) about a topic for five seconds and then gets distracted, but another skritt picks it up for five seconds and does the same, and so on… Each skritt in the chain could be adding another “angle” and, possibly, steering closer to a solution when a more direct line of thought wouldn’t suffice.

But basically, I found the theory that “they can communicate their ideas faster and therefore they’re better at picking out the best ones” to be woefully insufficient, and I wanted to see if anyone else felt that way. It seems to me that having more data to sift through wouldn’t necessarily make the relevant bits easier to spot, but again, I’m thinking like a human. Maybe I should just give up on trying to understand them without breaking my brain.

Or, “The Skritt-to-Skritt Interference Effect.”

According to an official source:

No one really knows how the skritt hive-like intelligence works. The most likely theory is that the skritt simply communicate so rapidly that, when together, they can vet their ideas and choose the best one within seconds, rather than going with whatever plan each individual first conceived. Certainly, the skritt have exceptionally sharp auditory skills. They can communicate with one another almost instantly if they are within earshot. If you meet one skritt alone, he might not appear particularly intelligent, but if you meet several, they can discuss their surroundings in amazingly swift, almost ultrasonic chirrups and chitters, and are able to process information and make more intelligent decisions. Therefore, the skritt seem less intelligent in small groups and more intelligent when they gather in larger ones. Because of this, the skritt in their scratches are the most intelligent—and possibly the most dangerous. Even the bravest asura hesitate to attack a hollow when it is filled with skritt.

It would seem that the apparent intelligence of skritt is directly proportional to the number of skritt in close proximity. Most of the theories I’ve seen attempting to explain this phenomenon focus on the idea of high-speed subsonic/ultrasonic inter-skritt communication. Theorists say that because information flows so rapidly amongst the skritt, they’re able to choose the “best” of all of the almost-randomly generated ideas.

However, I’m skeptical of this claim for the following reasons:

• From the 1980s to the present day, the growing network of computers known as the Internet (formerly the “World Wide Web”) led to a dramatic increase in the ease of communication and distribution of ideas among humans, similar in many ways to the proposed skritt intelligence model.
• Over the past two decades, humans (particularly those with access to the Internet, with some exceptions) have seemed to become increasingly stupid. See Exhibit A.
• While Srii the asura and others have observed that skritt actually seem to be more intelligent en masse than they are individually, this behavior seems to be unique to the skritt, and when other races collaborate intellectually, they seem to follow the opposite pattern. Rapid communication appears to allow insufficient time for proper evaluation of ideas, and such a flood of information therefore results in a deterioration of judgment.
• When many non-skritt individuals converge to discuss important matters in times of stress, the result is often a “mob mentality” that is far less than civilized; the same individuals may see an increase in judgment skills when given time to consider the information and choices, but the sense of urgency instilled by the crowd can overwhelm sound judgment. The skritt, however, encounter an increase in civilized behaviors, making rapid communication a less attractive hypothesis.

In summary, it seems possible that the “skritt intelligence multiplier effect” is less a function of communication and rapid exchange of information, and more of a biophysical or biochemical response. For instance, perhaps the subsonic/ultrasonic pulsations aren’t a means of communication, but rather a facilitator and a catalyst for intellectual performance. When multiple skritt congregate, these pulsations undergo a sort of constructive interference that results in an enhanced mental state for all affected individuals in range.

I offer this as one example of a novel theory on skritt intelligence. Does anyone else have an alternative to the popular “they can access tons of information therefore they’re smarter” school of thought (no pun intended)?

KarlaGrey.5903:

The real question here should be more along the lines of ‘why is there a leaderboard for solo arena to start with’.
It’s like adding a ladder to Random Arenas on GW1, and we all know how much of a laughing stock that would be…
To add rating to something that is by definition arbitrary just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense in general (I don’t care one bit that mobas use that kind of approach), yet players embrace it because the alternatives (apprently) don’t cut it, and that in itself is rather depressing. The paradox here is that players are repeatedly asking the format be made more along the lines of team arenas (e.g. balanced distribution of proffessions, matchmaking), yet at the same time do not want to play the more organized version of the format, in which they can directly influence, or at least somewhat limit the said issues. Not that one can really blame them for making that call, dat is…

It started out as only one queue and leaderboard for sPvP, but because people want to do more than hotjoins even when they can’t be (or don’t feel like) playing with a regular team, they added the solo queue. They don’t want some randoms messing up their hard-earned Team Arena leaderboard position, so the tournaments (with their respective boards) were separated into Team and Solo.

At this point, removing the solo queue leaderboard would be tantamount to saying they’re “hotjoins with more rules, like (seemingly) randomly chosen teams and no autobalance.” And that’s totally not the sort of image they want for solo arena tournaments.

Magische Boek.2530:

lol today i (a thief) and 3 other thiefs ended up in the same team, than our 5th guy joined and he was a warrior. first thing he said in team chat “lol should i switch to thief?” and we all agreed he should :p. 5 thiefs blasting on the other team and we won :p

I suspect that says something about profession balance, but it’s hard to be sure without knowing more about the other team.

Gaile Gray.6029:

gilymonster.7849:

Update; I have got 800 gems out of 2400, where the hell are my other gems!

Oh my gosh! Did you purchase in multiple transactions, or all at once? In any event, they should not take this long to arrive. I suggest you contact Support on the link at the top of this page. The team will review the account and make sure you get your gems.

(Just checking: Your mailbox is and was available for receipt of transactions, right? I’ve known of people who completely emptied the mailbox, even if it wasn’t full, and the gems then arrived. Might try that as you await direct assistance from Support.)

That’s really weird. I’ve never had gems arrive in the mail; they generally just show a little green “+800” floating over the balance for a second or so as it updates the number in the Gem Store window directly.

Does this mean that the gem delivery system is somehow linked to the mailbox, despite not using it?