Guild Wars 2

It seems like the GW1 players are split into two camps…

Guys who want every festive item to be the equivalent of a torment weapon, obi armour or VS. And guys who want festive items to be like GW1 festive items; half given away free and half available on the cash shop for a fee.

The former camp puzzles me, because this is exactly how GW1 didn’t work. Festive items were time for everyone to have some fun and awesomeness added to their wardrobe, and dungeons, trading and farming were for obtaining super rare skins, nobody used to mind or complain about this setup.

Claiming Guild Wars 1 was all about putting in tonnes of effort for reward (Which it was) but then applying that mindset to festive items is a fallacy.

Can the weapon skins really be used multiple times?

If thats true doesn’t it change the mechanic somewhat (“buy” the skin, use it, resell it for the same price, transmute the copy for yourself forever more)

Agemnon.4608:

I think the majority are rolling humans because they want to firmly establish their mains

I don’t think that’s good logic. Why would human be a “better” choice to main than any other race?

My main is Asura, in fact, I never play humans at all if the option exists. I play a human in real life, it’s nice to have a change of pace

Wait… they can transmute multiple items?

Using martial weapons as a caster is our gig. Kindly go away

- Sincerely, a Mesmer

Oozes are a wonderfully versatile beast, you can make everything from alcohol, to interesting treats, to pets to furniture with them!

Fallon.4253:

“If Arenanet is smart they don’t make the cost too high. They want players to constantly shift appearances for smaller sums over time rather than one larger sum barely ever.

So many players are vain and would waste a lot of cash on this if the option was there."

@Zzulu As much as I agree with your statement, I doubt they’d do something like that.

In GW1 one of my guildmates was so indecisive and kept changing his gender on an almost weekly basis. It became a running joke that he had velcro genitalia that he just stuck on or removed on a whim ;p

“Morning [name redacted], so, what’ll it be today? kitten or kittens?”

He must’ve spent hundreds of dollars over the years he played

What are you talking about mesmer have insane range?

Mesmer’s longest range attacks are 1200 range, and they have no range booster traits. That basiclly makes them average range, with thief sitting on the lower end (having only shortbow/pistols), and engineer/ranger on the upper end (having rifle/longbow attacks traitable to 1400-1600 range)

Sahriah.3792:

I can’t believe i just read what you typed.

I logged in, in LA to see a massive event area on my map.
I go to said event area and see an asura with a large pumpkin on her head
I talk to said asura, i READ what she says, then i get a mail and i READ the mail.

It VERY CLEARLY explains ’this device, which is powered by candy corn uses different frequencies to detect ghosts

Oh i say, the ghosts must be part of the event. So i scan for the first ghost, as said, and since the ghost says nothing of to much consequence i look in my bag to find a book.

Oh its part 1..maybe there are more parts..oh look there are clues to sites on the book.

Seriously its not hard. I sat in LA for over an hr telling me to msg me if they had questions about the event and how it worked. 90%..90%!!! Did not read the mail that they got with the meter detection device in it. SERIOUSLY. As soon as i said..read the mail they got it instantly.

^ – This. I managed to get get the quest started and find 5 out of 6 clues without needing to google and that wasn’t due to a mis-understanding, after checking 5 graveyards around kryta I was completely stumped and discovered there was a 6th really out of the way in the human starting zone (Which I’ve never explored having never played a human)

I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ll never give them money; I’ll give them money if they offer me the skins I want, but I will not and never will pay for gambling tickets for the skins I want, no skins, no money that simple.

I believe the mistake Anet has made to some extent, is to bring in a cash shop expert from a cash-milking F2P model, and ditched their GW1 B2P /w extras model, even though a large portion of their player base are returning GW1 customers who arn’t going to buy into the gambling model that most F2P’s use

~60g (Mostly in investments but that is release and flipped on a daily basis), I make my “living” as a day trader. Projected to have closer to 120 by the end of the week from investment turnover.

I already have T3 cultural armour and full exotics, so the amount of funds that pass through my hands is a lot higher than what I current have banked.

I’ve never farmed in GW2, I tried early on and quickly realiser mesmer has the mob-tagging potential on a wet noodle in a busy orrian dynamic event so i looked for other paths to getting shinies.

Cynical.2097:

The thread is about loot. If you are not here to discuss loot, then you’ve entered the wrong thread. Please note the X in the upper right hand corner of your screen.

This game is not about loot. If you play this game for loot you have purchased the wrong game. Please note the X in the upper right hand corner of your screen.

Wasn’t there a new forge recipe discovered in the last couple of days that required onyx lodestones?

Can’t remember what it was exactly, some exotic weapon skin.

That’s a good question. Will the event occur at a time localised to the server? – As an EU resident on a US server will i need to transfer server to participate at a reasonable time?

You know you don’t HAVE to grind or farm for anything, there are MANY ways to play this game.

People’s problem is “that other MMO” has trained you all to only think in terms of grinding. You want exotic armour – so you grind mobs til you get enough gold to buy exotic armour; and then you complain you had to grind. Well, news flash you didn’t have to grind it was your own personal choice.

Personally I enjoy trading on the BLTP, buy low, sell high etc. I go adventuring with my friends, exploring and having fun, do it all on a whim. And then I turn in and flip my stocks, maybe craft some gear to sell or use… I have T3 cultural armour and full exotics, and I’ve never farmed an hour in my GW2 life;

In fact… farming would be nigh impossible for me, I’m a mesmer. We’re about as much good for tagging mobs in Orr as a wet noodle xD – but my point is, you don’t HAVE to farm. Dungeons, adventuring, exploring, trading… get out and having fun. They all pay the bills – the tendancy to grind is hard wired into your brains and you have to un-train your MMO instincts if you want to be free of it!

Think of this as an end-game mesmer simulator.

Now you too can enjoy the experience of having everything 1-shotted before you can even set up a spell, or hit a target hard enough to tag it. Never again worry about having to pick up loot (There is none)

At the end of the single player campaign you can access him, I got to him some weeks back and was puzzled to find he had no weapons on offer and said he accepted those non existant tokens.

We won’t know til those acts come. But transmuting legendary precursor items are known to render them useless for creating legendaries, so I would HIGHLY recommend against it.

raxx.8914:

The makers of this game all play warriors.

Because rangers, guardians and mesmers don’t also use greatswords right?

Who says they have to be selfless?

My own “guardian” asura is an expert on barrier and kinetics technologies and working on mass market applications of the technology (Shield generators, adaptive structures etc).

What better way to advertise the effectiveness of your product than to save someone’s life with it

ASIDES from the chest shenanigans, the halloween event really has been top notch so far and it looks like the best is yet to come. Far superior to GW1’s Halloween events, so kudos to Anet on that

PS: You could make it even better if you added the chest skins to CS

“How many asura does it take to change a lightbulb”
“Three. One to change it, and two to tell him how’d they’d have done it better”

(Paraphrased)
“How do you escape an elder dragon?”
“Just make sure you’re running faster than Snaff”

Imagine walking into a shop, you buy bread, milk and eggs. You see a pick and mix bag of sweets on offer so you buy some of those too.

You get home, open your pick and mix bag, and find it’s full of dishwasher capsules. When people have a “chance of getting one of these skins”, one rather expects a “chance to get one of those skins”, not a “chance to get something COMPLETELY unrelated you don’t want”

@Mattress

Are you sure this a train you really want to ride all the way to it’s destination?

You don’t need skins, but you don’t need events, you don’t need Guild Wars 2. You don’t NEED a computer, or money, or even a house if you have a shelter and a fire and can catch your own food. There is remarkably little in the world anyone needs besides food, water and warmth, but needs don’t necessarily bring happiness.

If people have money, you have the product (Which essentially costs nothing being a digital item), and they would be happy with the item, why not give them the item and they give you the money, it’s a win win.

The red gentleman speaks the truth… the paranormal energy levels in LA are rising… when it reaches 100% things can only get “intresting”

Tynna is the ghost in the ruins of Lions Arch isn’t she?

I thought she gives III, and II comes from "the place where all the rubbish of lions arch flows to"

ArwenDarkblade.3829:

Yes, but a pumpkin isn’t an animal.

Neither is the fernhound (bah-dum-tsh)

You can re-transmute the customised weapon using stones yes. So you can keep upgrading it if you wish.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up though the drop rate is like 1 in 100

Stormcrow.7513:

The major issue isnt the skins, or Halloween for that matter. It is the inflation prices of gems that is the real issue.

Not really. The value of money-to-gems is essentially static.

Gold to gems is variable yes but, if you’re paying with gold you’re not actually paying arenanet at all, so this is an entirely different question (What is the fair conversion rate of gems to gold and vice versa). In fact if you’re buying gems, to sell for gold, to buy skins off TP then inflated gem prices are in your favour.

Well I’m heartened to see I’m not alone. Maybe in future (Or if we’re really lucky, this event) we’ll see cash shop skins instead of chest-gambling skins

Minion of Vey.4398:

Well, they’re right there on the TP now.

Last check to buy on TP (assuming you arn’t already filth rich in-game), would require converting $50-80 of gems into gold. That is possibly the most expensive cash-shop item ever.

Who says they have to be unique? – The GW1 clothing skins wern’t unqiue either (Actually they WERE because they were limited edition during that event only)

Surely any item you buy with money isn’t unique to begin with since possession is limited only by your finances not a symbol of prestige like a legendary weapon which requires serious time investment

Asking around in my own guild it seems none of us (around a dozen people) have bought chests, yet 2/3 of us would happily buy Halloween weapon skins off the cash shop were they available.

I’m wondering if this is a common phenomena, it’s just, if 2/3 of the entire game population is also keeping their purse strings tightly drawn in respect to chests, but would happily pay for the skins outright… is this something Arenanet needs to think about, if not for this event, then for future events?

Or is my guild somewhat unique and oddly Scrooglelike in nature?

<Dons flameproof suit for the inevitable wave of destroyer trolls who feel making skins available to all and sunder would cheapen their gameplay>

Edit: Oh, right. Forgot the mandatory image macro

Let’s clear up some logical fallacies flying about here.

“Making the skins easy to obtain cheapens their exclusivity”

Whoever said these skins have to be rare or exclusive? There is no shortage of genuinely rare and exclusive items out there (craftable Halloween items, legendaries, etc).

If there is a market, why not let it make you some money. And it’s quite apparent there are many players out there who won’t buy keys, but will buy skins were they available.

“People feel entitled and want everything!”

This is the exclusivity arguement wrapped in a thin guise. If you genuinely want an item to be hard to obtain then those are the items that should be obtained via in-game means only.

Afterall, a weapon still isn’t a sign of prestige if you can simply buy it by throwing money at the problem until you get it. It isn’t a sign of prestige, it just shows you have a lot of disposable income.

“You don’t have to have everything”

Technically you don’t NEED anything more than food, water and shelter. But nessecities and entertainment is nice. Restricting access to digital items that exist in a virtual world for no reason other than “because we can” is completly pointless especially when said market plan is actually clamping their profittability.
______________________________________________

“It’s part of their buisness plan!”

Have YOU bought chests for these rare skins? – Do you know people who have and how much they spent doing so?

None of my guild have bought more than 1 chest each (Mostly in a lottery ticket style fashion see if they got lucky). But almost all of them, me inclusive would happily pay them to simply buy the skin we wanted; for a lot more than the price of 1 key.

I’m no business expert* but it doesn’t seem like the strategy of appealing only to gamblers is really earning them a great deal more than simply letting people buy the skins off the CS; it’d certainly earn them a lot less negative press though that much is certain.

Drunken Mad King.8193:

Don’t worry after the Order storyline it transforms into someone else’s personal story (Traehern’s story) you just become his lackey.

Except for the dungeons and finale; which are a soap opera about a bunch’ve has-been adventurers still bickering about the good old days.

Between Trehearne, destiny’s edge and the fact the final battle is a team effort where you team is nothing more than bystanders in the wrong place at the right time to help it’s pretty clear this isn’t your story

I’d been happier if they hadn’t tried pretend it was, and just made it clear I’m another faceless pact soldier. I can dig war stories from the perspective of a grunt too

Back slot items don’t show up in the inventory window. This might seem like kitten question but have you looked at your character IN game to see if it’s displaying?

(Lol, really kitten is censored? XD)

defektive.3540:

In the light of real world money gambling already being a core component of the game – for shame, BTW – I expect the primary reason your otherwise excellent idea would fail is contained within the opening component of your closing sentence.

You’d think so, but in practice a lot of people who refused to buy them in the first place, started buying them. I for one did, because I knew that it’d only take a maximum of X many attempts to get the item anyway and I might even get some stuff I didn’t want that I could flog for gold.

To clarify we’re talking about relatively common items, the rarest goodies just wern’t obtainable in this fashion or required hundreds of dollars worth of tokens. But stuff like weapon skins? – That’d be realistically obtainable without breaking the bank.

Well, I called it.

When WoW came along charging subscription fees to play and people accepted that i joked “One of these days, thanks to idiots easily parted with their money, we’ll see games where you have two price lists, one in game gold, one in real money”

It took 8 years but that day is well and truly here

Eicherjw.3926:

I think previous MMOs, like WoW, have given players a false sense of entitlement

You mean like Guild Wars, heaven forbid that a long time player of the previous title in this series expect that it’s sequel be as balanced and reasonable as it’s predecessor on topics like the cash shop.

And here’s the interesting bit; nobody in GW1 used to kitten that stuff was too easy to get or not exclusive enough… funny that

GW1 still had hard to get stuff, what it didn’t have is skins that effectively cost $50-100

^ This. I’d buy the skin, I won’t buy keys – Most of my guild says the same thing.

Where is the buisness logic in this? – Surely it’s better to sell a few things worth $5-10 to lots of people, than it is to sell lots of things worth $1-2 to a few people

I disagree.

You use GW1 as an example, yet GW1 hadnothing like this. GW1 sold their weapon and armour skins freely on the cash shop. The weapon skins in the form of the bonus missions required a little legwork, but the missions were fun and not difficult so this was ok.

The clothing was invariably something you bought directly.

In both cases you saw what you liked, you trumped up the money, and you had you cake and ate it. This cash shop is more reminiscent of F2P titles, something that I did not expect to see in a pay to own game like GW2

Looking at people upset who opened dozens of chests to get nothing of use, might I suggest a chest token system such as used in Allods Online

Allods used a similar chest system for gambling for rare goodies during special events. What they did eventually was to instate a token system alongside it, so every time you opened a chest you got a “token” as well. These tokens could be traded in to a special NPC in exchange for the same items that drop at random out of a chest.

In this way if someone wants item X, and open 40 chests, and gets item Y, or worse, no items at all, he’ll eventually get enough tokens that he can hand them in for the item he wanted so badly anyway.

While it might be less profitable (Less desperate gamblers squandering their savings) it leaves a better taste in people’s mouths as they can eventually get the item they wanted via tokens.

If I go on both Guru and the official forums my ears are constantly ringing with people screaming “NERF MESMER” at me, and the patch notes every week scream the same thing.

I’m starting to think i have some kind’ve rare tinitus

Why do i get a sneaking suspicion the devs at arenanet quietly participate in sPvP and are on board with everyone else in screaming “OMG NERF MESMER”

Because… it’s the only logical explanation for their patch behaviour.

HOW ABOUT SOME FIXES NEXT PATCH? – too much to ask?

Yeah. I was rather surprised they went to the trouble of hiring different voice actors, yet shoehorning the exact same dialogue into each.

I can confirm they are, my charr and my asura both say the exact same lines once they get onto the main arc quests with the exception of the occasional shout-out to returning characters (ie. Gorr) who they respond to differently if they knew each other in their personal events

That very much depends on playstyle…

Shatter builds and greatsword users will benefit most from focusing on power/crit (ie berserkers set) since these attacks do almost exclusively direct damage,

Any build that uses a staff, or phantasm builds that also have sharper images will benefit a lot from having good condition/crit – (ie rampagers set). I would recommend against focusing totally on condition to the detriment of power entirely though.

Both are entirely valid paths through PvE. I levelled on a pwoer build but recently switched to condition and actually put out MORE damage with it than i did on power, though without so many trait points I don’t know if the build would be so viable.

Glamours (and glamour mastery) are a must have then, feedback and null field are incredibly useful. Learning to master the focus offhand is good too since you’ll be able to bundle up and control large groups of foes for quick nuking by using into the void. Phantasmal defender is a solid choice too providing additional survivability to the frontline.

Staff is great for dungeons having a lot of powerful buffs/debuffs through chaos, though i personally eschew the staff in favour of a greatsword; I really should get into the habit of bringing it on dungeon runs though staff is the better choice here.

As for elites, time-warp is the general weapon of choice for most mesmers. I actually take the asuran D-series golem mostly as it has a huge amount of hitpoints and does a good job at tanking.

The build I personally run for both solo and dungeon play is:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.8.12.3.0.18.0.0.0.0.180.197.199.200.204.2.2.44.0.0.0.542.550.0.560.0.0.572.578.0.588.0.0.0.20.15.25.10

The principle behind the build is that you use the focus to group up enemies where they can be AoE’d down quickly by your team, iZerker and iWarden are perfect for doing just that (The sword isn’t for show, I routinely jump right into the action with my sword and come out of it just fine). The build is NOT based on shattering; instead when a clone gets killed or over-written it has a chance to cause weakness further reducing the threat they pose.

Glamours can be used frequently, and between wardens feedback and feedback itself you have no less than 3 ways to reflect projectiles, which has a huge impact on dungeon play (Many MANY bosses and major foes have reflectable attacks). Defender and phantasmal healing provides additional survivability to the guys taking the heat and null field is there to cure the parties conditions when appropriate.

In a party situation regen often gets flung about by your team mates, as well as phantasmal healing and metaphysical rejuvination so you’ll frequently be proccing protection from illusory membrane which when combined with guardian and your wall of decoys actually makes you pretty tanky.

Staff would be a viable swap for greatsword, which’d reduce your overall DPS, but increase your support capabilities and survivability; in which case you’d trade the berserker gear for rampager

The Series D golem can be pretty useful. It has a huge hitpoint pool and intermittently sets down shield bubbles that reflect projectiles, it’s also quite responsive and tends to target your target, and also does a good job taking aggro off you.

I often use it alongside a phantasmal guardian (as a mesmer), which further reduces it’s damage received and it can routinely tank champions in dungeons for most of it’s duration.

The Series 7 golem I find tends to be too squishy, like the series D it has a habit of drawing aggro but it can’t take as good as it gives. It’s damage isn’t exactly stellar anyway, though it does in theory provide additional DPS it’s doubtful it’s DPS exceeds that of your class elites.

The power armour is just BAD in every way, it’s slow to attack, weak, if it dies, you die, it can’t jump so if you slip down a sharp surface you get stuck…

Sounds like you guys need to man up and admit you ain’t “all that”, with proper strategy it’s a breeze.

Have you explored the WvW/PvP zones? – they count too i hear

Have you tried stripping off naked and seeing if it still does it?

The sounds your character make are actually derived from your clothing parts; if you’re wearing heavy armour on your legs but padded shoes, you’ll here it scrape and clank when you bend your legs, but your footfalls will sound soft, it’s a very clever system for immersion.

A lot of armour parts though unsurprisingly may be annoying, like running about in full plate will clank and scrape a lot with every little movement, while some of the light armour sets have jewellery and adornments you can hear shake and clink as you move.

It’s more likely you’ve upgraded to new armour that has a different ambient sound to your old set than it being tied to the backpack you once equipped